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THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF

JOHN MUIR

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOLUME II

$

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF

JOHN MUIR

BY

WILLIAM FREDERIC BADE

VOLUME n

BOSTON AND NEW YORK

HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
jlSliberisttie $re£(£( Cambrtbge
1924

COPYRIGHT, I924f BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

9&(lieriE(ibe

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A.

CONTENTS

XI. On Widening Currents, 1873-1875 3

XII. “The World Needs the Woods,

1875-1878 47

XIII. Nevada, Alaska, and a Home, 1878-

1880 97

XIV. The Second Alaska Trip and the
Search for the Jeannette, 1880-

1881 137

XV. Winning a Competence, 1881-1891 193

XVI. Trees AND Travel, 1891-1897 252

XVII. Unto the Last

I. 1897-1905 304

II. 1905-1914 351

XVIII. His Public Service 392

Index 425

THE LIFE AND LETTEKS OF
JOHN MUIR

VOLUME II

THE LIFE AND LETTERS OF

JOHN MUIR

CHAPTER XI

ON WIDENING CURRENTS
1873-1875

The ten months^ interval of Muir^s Oakland
sojourn made a complete break in his accus¬
tomed activities. It was a storm and stress
period to which he refers afterward as “the
strange Oakland epoch/ ^ and we are left to in¬
fer that the strangeness consisted chiefly in the
fact that he was housebound — by his own
choice, to be sure, but nevertheless shut away
from the free life of the mountains. It is not
surprising, perhaps, that this period is marked
by an almost complete stoppage of his corre¬
spondence, though he never was more con¬
tinuously busy with his pen than during these

✓

months.

Easily the foremost literary journal of the .
Pacific Coast at that time was the “Overland
Monthly.’^ It had been founded in 1868, and
Bret Harte was the man to whom it owed both

3

JOHN MUIR

its beginning and the fame it achieved under
his editorship. The magazine, however, was
not a profit-yielding enterprise, for John H.
Carmany, its owner, professed to have lost
thirty thousand dollars in his endeavor to
make it pay. In a sheaf of reminiscences writ¬
ten years afterward, he reveals the double
reason why the magazine proved expensive
and why so many distinguished names, such
as those of Mark Twain, Joaquin Miller, Am¬
brose Bierce, Edward Rowland Sill, Bret
Harte, and John Muir, appear on its roll of
contributors. “They have reason to remember
me,^’ he wrote, “for never have such prices
been paid for poems, stories, and articles as I
paid to the writers of the old ^Overland.’

Bret Harte, balking at a contract designed
to correct his dilatory literary habits, left the
magazine in 1871, and, after several unsatis¬
factory attempts to supply his place, Benja¬
min P. Avery became editor of the “ Overland.
In March, 1874, he wrote a letter acknowledg¬
ing the first number of Muir^s notable series
of “Studies in the Sierra,’^ thereby disclosing
what the latter had been doing during the
winter months. “I am delighted,’^ he tells
Muir, “with your very original and clearly
written paper on ‘Mountain Sculpture^ which
reveals the law beneath the beauty of moun-

4

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

tain and rock forms. This article, accom¬
panied by numerous illustrative line drawings,
appeared as the leading contribution in May
and was followed in monthly succession by six
others, in the order given in an earlier chapter.^

Not many weeks after the receipt of this
initial article, Mr. Avery accepted an appoint¬
ment as Minister to China. ^^Not ambition
for honors,’’ he wrote to Muir, “but the com¬
pulsion of broken health made me risk a foreign
appointment, and I especially regret that the
opportunity to share in the publication of your
valuable papers, and to know you most inti¬
mately, is to be lost to me.” To the deep regret
of his friends, Avery died in China the follow¬
ing year. Mr. Carmany, despairing of the
“Overland” as a financial venture, let it come
to an end in 1875, and Muir, when his current
engagements were discharged, formed new
literary connections.

There can be no doubt that during the clos¬
ing years of the magazine, 1874-75, Muir’s
articles constituted by far the most significant
contribution. It was in good measure due to
Mrs. Carr that he was finally induced to write
this series of “Sierra Studies.” She had even
suggested suspension of correspondence in
order to enable him to accomplish the task.

JOHN MUIR

^‘You told me I ought to abandon letter writ¬
ing/’ he wrote to her on Christmas day, 1872,
'^and I see plainly enough that you are right
in this, because my correspondence has gone
on increasing year by year and has become far
too bulky and miscellaneous in its character,
and consumes too much of my time. Therefore
I mean to take your advice and allow broad
acres of silence to spread between my letters,
however much of self-denial may be de¬
manded.”

In the same letter, which a strange combi¬
nation of circumstances has just brought to
light again after fifty-two years, he expresses
pungently that distaste for the mechanics of
writing which undoubtedly accounts in part
for the relative smallness of his formal literary
output.

Book-making frightens me [he declares], because
it demands so much artificialness and retrograding.
Somehow, up here in these fountain skies [of Yose-
mite] I feel like a flake of glass through which light
passes, but which, conscious of the inexhaustibleness
of its sun fountain, cares not whether its passing
light coins itself into other forms or goes unchanged
— neither charcoaled nor diamonded ! Moreover, I
find that though I have a few thoughts entangled
in the fibres of my mind, I possess no words into
which I can shape them. You tell me that I must
be patient and reach out and grope in lexicon gran-

6

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

aries for the words I want. But if some loquacious
angel were to touch my lips with literary fire, be¬
stowing every word of Webster, I would scarce
thank him for the gift, because most of the words of
the English language are made of mud, for muddy
purposes, while those invented to contain spiritual
matter are doubtful and unfixed in capacity and
form, as wind-ridden mist-rags.

These mountain fires that glow in one’s blood are
free to all, but I cannot find the chemistry that may
press them unimpaired into booksellers’ bricks.
True, with that august instrument, the English lan¬
guage, in the manufacture of which so many brains
have been broken, I can proclaim to you that moon¬
shine is glorious, and sunshine more glorious, that
winds rage, and waters roar, and that in Herrible
times’ glaciers guttered the mountains with their
hard cold snouts. This is about the limit of what I
feel capable of doing for the public — the moiling,
squirming, fog-breathing public. But for my few
friends I can do more because they already know
the mountain harmonies and can catch the tones I
gather for them, though written in a few harsh and
gravelly sentences.

There was another aspect of writing that
Muir found irksome and that was its solitari¬
ness. Being a fluent and vivid conversational¬
ist, accustomed to the excitation of eager hear¬
ers, he missed the give-and-take of conversa¬
tion when he sat down with no company but
that of his pen. Even the writing of a letter to
a friend had something* of* the conversational

7

JOHN MUIR

about it. But to write between four walls for
the Babylonish mobs’^ that hived past his
window was another matter. Fresh from Cas-
siope, the heather of the High Sierra, aglow
with enthusiasm for the beauty that had burned
itself into his soul, he could but wonder and
grow indignant at the stolid self-sufficiency of
^Hhe metallic, money-clinking crowds,^’ among
whom he felt himself as alien as any Hebrew
psalmist or prophet by the waters of Babylon.

It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that
this first sojourn in the San Francisco Bay
region was for Muir a kind of exile under which
he evidently chafed a good deal. His human
environment was so unblushingly materialistic
that, in spite of a few sympathetic friends, it
seemed to him well-nigh impossible to obtain
a hearing on behalf of Nature from any other
standpoint than that of commercial utility.
On this point he differed trenchantly with his
contemporaries and doubtless engaged in a
good many arguments, for his frankness and
downright sincerity did not permit him to
compromise the supremacy of values which by
his own standard far exceeded those of com¬
mercialism. It is by reference to such verbal
passages of arms that we must explain his al¬
lusion, in the following letter, to ^^all the mor¬
bidness that has been hooted at me.’^

8

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

The issue was one which, in his own mind,
he had settled fundamentally on his thousand-
mile walk to the Gulf, but which challenged
him again at every street corner in Oakland,
and he was not the man to retire from combat
in such a cause. He was, in fact, an eager and
formidable opponent. ^^No one who did not
know Muir in those days,’^ remarked one of
his old friends to me, ^^can have any concep¬
tion of Muir^s brilhance as a conversational
antagonist in an argument.’^ The world made
especially for the uses of man? Certainly
not,’^ said Muir. “No dogma taught by the
present civihzation forms so insuperable an
obstacle to a right understanding of the rela¬
tions which human culture sustains to wildness.
Every animal, plant, and crystal controverts
it in the plainest terms. Yet it is taught from
century to century as something ever new and
precious, and in the resulting darkness the
enormous conceit is allowed to go unchal¬
lenged!’’

Though grilling in his very blood over this
huckster appraisement of Nature, Muir labored
hard and continuously with his pen throughout
the winter and the following spring and sum¬
mer. When autumn came he had completed not
only his seven “Studies in the Sierra,” but had
also written a paper entitled “Studies in the

9

I

JOHN MUIR

Formation of Mountains in the Sierra Nevada’^
for the American Association for the Advance¬
ment of Science, and articles on “Wild Sheep
of California^’ and “Byways of Yosemite
Travel.” About this time his health had begun
to suffer from excessive confinement and ir¬
regular diet at restaurants, so, yielding with
sudden resolution to an overpowering longing
for the moimtains, he set out again for Yose¬
mite. The following letter in which his cor¬
respondence with Mrs. Carr reaches its highest
level and, in a sense, its conclusion, celebrates
his escape from an uncongenial environment.

To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr

Yosemite Valley, [September, 1874]
Dear Mrs. Carr:

Here again are pine trees, and the wind, and
living rock and water! I’ve met two of my
ouzels on one of the pebble ripples of the river
where I used to be with them. Most of the
meadow gardens are disenchanted and dead,
yet I found a few mint spikes and asters and
brave, sunful goldenrods and a patch of the
tiny Mimulus that has two spots on each
lip. The fragrance and the color and the
form, and the whole spiritual expression of
goldenrods are hopeful and strength-giving
beyond any other flowers that I know. A

10

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

single spike is sufficient to heal unbelief and
melancholy.

On leaving Oakland I was so excited over my
escape that, of course, I forgot and left all the
accounts I was to collect. No wonder, and no
matter. I^m beneath that grand old pine that
I have heard so often in storms both at night
and in the day. It sings grandly now, every
needle sun-thrilled and shining and responding
tunefully to the azure wind.

When I left I was in a dreamy exhausted
daze. Yet from mere habit or instinct I tried to
observe and study. From the car window I
watched the gradual transitions from muddy
water, spongy tule, marsh and level field as we
shot up the San Jose Valley, and marked as
best I could the forms of the stream canons as
they opened to the plain and the outlines of the
undulating hillocks and headlands between.
Interest increased at every mile, until it seemed
imbearable to be thrust so flyingly onward
even towards the blessed Sierras. I will study
them yet, free from time and wheels. Wlien we
turned suddenly and dashed into the narrow
mouth of the Livermore pass I was looking out
of the right side of the car. The window was
closed on account of the cinders and smoke
from the locomotive. All at once my eyes
clasped a big hard rock not a hundred yards

11

i

JOHN MUIR

away, every line of which is as strictly and out¬
spokenly glacial as any of the most alphabetic
of the high and young Sierra. That one sure
glacial word thrilled and overjoyed me more
than you will ever believe. Town smokes and
shadows had not dimmed my vision, for I had
passed this glacial rock twice before without
reading its meaning.

As we proceeded, the general glacialness of
the range became more and more apparent,
until we reached Pleasanton where once there
was a grand mer de glace. Here the red sun
went down in a cloudless glow and I leaned
back, happy and weary and possessed with a
lifeful of noble problems.

At Lathrop we suppered and changed cars.
The last of the daylight had long faded and I
sauntered away from the din while the baggage
was being transferred. The young moon hung
like a sickle above the shorn wheat fields, Ursa
Major pictured the northern sky, the Milky
Way curved sublimely through the broadcast
stars like some grand celestial moraine with
planets for boulders, and the whole night shone
resplendent, adorned with that calm imperish¬
able beauty which it has worn unchanged from
the beginning.

I slept at Turlock and next morning faced
the Sierra and set out through the sand afoot.

12

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

The freedom I felt was exhilarating, and the
burning heat and thirst and faintness could not
make it less. Before I had walked ten miles I
was wearied and footsore, but it was real earn¬
est work and I liked it. Any kind of simple
natural destruction is preferable to the numb,
dumb, apathetic deaths of a town.

Before I was out of sight of Turlock I found
a handful of the glorious Hemizonia virgata and
a few of the patient, steadfast eriogonums that
I learned to love around the slopes of Twenty-
Hill Hollow. While I stood with these old dear
friends we were joined by a lark, and in a few
seconds more Harry Edwards ^ came flapping
by with spotted wings. Just think of the com¬
pleteness of that reunion ! — Twenty-Hill Hol¬
low, Hemizonia, Eriogonum, Lark, Butterfly,
and I, and lavish outflows of genuine Twenty-
Hill Hollow sun gold. I threw down my coat
and one shirt in the sand, forgetting Hopeton
and heedless that the sun was becoming hotter
every minute. I was wild once more and let
my watch warn and point as it pleased.

Heavy wagon loads of wheat had been
hauled along the road and the wheels had sunk
deep and left smooth beveled furrows in the
sand. Upon the smooth slopes of these sand
furrows I soon observed a most beautiful and

^ For the meaning of this allusion see vol. i, p. 263.

13

JOHN MUIR

varied embroidery, evidently tracks of some
kind. At first I thought of mice, but soon saw
they were too light and delicate for mice. Then
a tiny lizard darted into the stubble ahead of
me, and I carefully examined the track he
made, but it was entirely unhke the fine print
embroidery I was studying. However I knew
that he might make very different tracks if
walking leisurely. Therefore I determined to
catch one and experiment. I found out in
Florida that lizards, however swift, are short-
winded, so I gave chase and soon captured a
tiny gray fellow and carried him to a smooth
sand-bed where he could embroider without
getting away into grass tufts or holes. He was
so wearied that he couldnT skim and was com¬
pelled to walk, and I was excited with delight
in seeing an exquisitely beautiful strip of em¬
broidery about five-eighths of an inch wide,
drawn out in flowing curves behind him as
from a loom. The riddle was solved. I knew
that mountain boulders moved in music; so
also do lizards, and their written music, printed
by their feet, moved so swiftly as to be invis¬
ible, covers the hot sands with beauty wherever
they go.

But my sand embroidery lesson was by no
means done. I speedily discovered a yet more
delicate pattern on the sands, woven into that

14

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

of the lizard. I examined the strange combina¬
tion of bars and dots. No five-toed lizard had
printed that music. I watched narrowly down
on my knees, following the strange and beauti¬
ful pattern along the wheel furrows and out
into the stubble. Occasionally the pattern
would suddenly end in a shallow pit half an
inch across and an eighth of an inch deep. I
was fairly puzzled, picked up my bundle, and
trudged discontentedly away, but my eyes
were hungrily awake and I watched all the
ground. At length a gray grasshopper rattled
and flew up, and the truth flashed upon me
that he was the complementary embroiderer
of the lizard. Then followed long careful ob¬
servation, but I never could see the grass¬
hopper until he jumped, and after he alighted
he invariably stood watching me with his legs
set ready for another jump in case of danger.
Nevertheless I soon made sure that he was my
man, for I found that in jumping he made the
shallow pits I had observed at the termination
of the pattern I was studying. But no matter
how patiently I waited he wouldnT walk while
I was sufficiently near to observe. They are so
nearly the color of the sand. I therefore caught
one and lifted his wing covers and cut off about
half of each wing with my penknife, and car¬
ried him to a favorable place on the sand. At

JOHN MUIR

first he did nothing but jump and make
dimples, but soon became weary and walked in
common rhythm with all his six legs, and my
interest you may guess while I watched the
embroidery — the written music laid down in
a beautiful ribbon-hke strip behind. I glowed
with wild joy as if I had found a new glacier —
copied specimens of the precious fabric into
my notebook, and strode away with my own
feet sinking with a dull craunch, craunch,
craunch in the hot gray sand, glad to believe
that the dark and cloudy vicissitudes of the
Oakland period had not dimmed my vision in
the least. Surely Mother Nature pitied the
poor boy and showed him pictures.

Happen what would, fever, thirst, or sun¬
stroke, my joy for that day was complete. Yet
I was to receive still more. A train of curving
tracks with a line in the middle next fixed my
attention, and almost before I had time to
make a guess concerning their author, a small
hawk came shooting down vertically out of the
sky a few steps ahead of me and picked up
something in his talons. After rising thirty or
forty feet overhead, he dropped it by the road¬
side as if to show me what it was. I ran forward
and found a little bunchy field mouse and at
once suspected him of being embroiderer num¬
ber three. After an exciting chase through

16

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

stubble heaps and weed thickets I wearied and
captured him without being bitten and turned
him free to make his mark in a favorable sand
bed. He also embroidered better than he knew,
and at once claimed the authorship of the new
track work.

I soon learned to distinguish the pretty
sparrow track from that of the magpie and lark
with their three delicate branches and the
straight scratch behind made by the back-
curving claw, dragged loosely like a spur of a
Mexican vaquero. The cushioned elastic feet
of the hare frequently were seen mixed with
the pattering scratchy prints of the squirrels.
I was now wholly trackful. I fancied I could see
the air whirling in dimpled eddies from sparrow
and lark wings. Earthquake boulders descend¬
ing in a song of curves, snowflakes glinting
songfully hither and thither. ^^The water in
music the oar forsakes. The air in music the
wing forsakes. All things move in music and
write it. The mouse, lizard, and grasshopper
sing together on the Turlock sands, sing with
the morning stars.

Scarce had I begim to catch the eternal har¬
monies of Nature when I heard the hearty god-
danming din of the mule driver, dust whirled
in the sun gold, and I could see the sweltering
mules leaning forward, dragging the heavily

17

JOHN MUIR

piled wheat wagons, deep sunk in the sand.
My embroidery perished by the mile, but grass¬
hoppers never wearied nor the gray lizards nor
the larks, and the coarse confusion of man was
speedily healed.

About noon I found a family of grangers
feeding, and remembering your admonitions
anent my health requested leave to join them.
My head ached with fever and sunshine, and
I couldn’t dare the ancient brown bacon, nor
the beans and cakes, but water and splendid
buttermilk came in perfect affinity, and made
me strong.

Towards evening, after passing through
miles of blooming Hemizonia, I reached Hope-
ton on the edge of the oak fringe of the Merced.
Here all were yellow and woebegone with ma¬
larious fever. I rested one day, spending the
time in examining the remarkably flat water-
eroded valley of the Merced and the geological
sections which it offers. In going across to the
river I had a suggestive time breaking my way
through tangles of blackberry and brier-rose
and willow. I admire delicate plants that are
well prickled and therefore took my scratched
face and hands patiently. I bathed in the
sacred stream, seeming to catch all its moun¬
tain tones while it softly mumbled and rippled
over the shallows of brown pebbles. The whole

18

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

river back to its icy sources seemed to rise in
clear vision, with its countless cascades and
falls and blooming meadows and gardens. Its
pine groves, too, and the winds that play them,
all appeared and sounded.

In the cool of the evening I caught Browny
and cantered across to the Tuolunme, the
whole way being fragrant and golden with
Hemizonia. A breeze swept in from your Golden
Gate regions over the passes and across the
plains, fanning the hot ground and drooping
plants and refreshing every beast and tired and
weary, plodding man.

It was dark ere I reached my old friend
Delaney, but was instantly recognized by my
voice, and welcomed in the old good uncivilized
way, not to be misunderstood.

All the region adjacent to the Tuolunme
River where it sweeps out into the plain after
its long eventful journey in the mountains, is
exceedingly picturesque. Round terraced hills,
brown and yellow with grasses and compositae
and adorned with open groves of darkly foli-
aged live oak are grouped in a most open tran¬
quil manner and laid upon a smooth level base
of purple plain, while the river bank is lined with
nooks of great beauty and variety in which the
river has swept and curled, shifting from side to
side, retreating and returning, as determined

19

JOHN MUIR

by floods and the gradual erosion and removal
of drift beds formerly laid down. A few miles
above here at the village of La Grange the wild
river has made some astonishing deposits in its
young days, through which it now flows with
the manners of stately old age, apparently dis¬
claiming all knowledge of them. But a thou¬
sand, thousand boulders gathered from many a
moraine, swashed and ground in pot-holes, re¬
cord their history and tell of white floods of a
grandeur not easily conceived. Noble sections
nearly a hundred feet deep are laid bare, like a
book, by the mining company. Water is drawn
from the river several miles above and con¬
ducted by ditches and pipes and made to play
upon these deposits for the gold they contain.
Thus the Tuolumne of to-day is compelled to
unravel and lay bare its own ancient history
which is a thousandfold more important than
the handfuls of gold sand it chances to con¬
tain.

I mean to return to these magnificent records
in a week or two and turn the gold disease of
the La Grangers to account in learning the
grand old story of the Sierra flood period. If
these hundred laborious hydraulickers were
under my employ they could not do me better
service, and all along the Sierra flank thousands
of strong arms are working for me, incited by

20

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

the small golden bait. Who shall say that I
am not rich?

Up through the purple foothills to Coulter-
ville, where I met many hearty, shaggy moun¬
taineers glad to see me. Strange to say the

Overland^’ studies have been read and dis¬
cussed in the most unlikely places. Some
numbers have found their way through the
Bloody Canon pass to Mono.

In the evening Black and I rode together up
into the sugar pine forests and on to his old
ranch in the moonlight. The grand priest-like
pines held their arms above us in blessing. The
wind sang songs of welcome. The cool glaciers
and the running crystal fountains were in it.
I was no longer on but in the mountains —
home again, and my pulses were filled. On and
on in white moonlight-spangles on the streams,
shadows in rock hollows and briery ravines,
tree architecture on the sky more divine than
ever stars in their spires, leafy mosaic in
meadow and bank. Never had the Sierra
seemed so inexhaustible — mile on mile on¬
ward in the forest through groves old and
young, pine tassels overarching and brushing
both cheeks at once. The chirping of crickets
only deepened the stillness.

About eight o’clock a strange mass of tones
came surging and waving through the pines.

21

JOHN MUIR

‘^That’s the death song/^ said Black, as he
reined up his horse to listen. “Some Indian is
dead.’^ Soon two glaring watch-fires shone red
through the forest, marking the place of con¬
gregation. The fire glare and the wild wailing
came with indescribable impressiveness through
the still dark woods. I listened eagerly as the
weird curves of woe swelled and cadenced, now
rising steep like glacial precipices, now swoop¬
ing low in polished slopes. Falling boulders and
rushing streams and wind tones caught from
rock and tree were in it. As we at length rode
away and the heaviest notes were lost in dis¬
tance, I wondered that so much of mountain
nature should well out from such a source.
Miles away we met Indian groups slipping
through the shadows on their way to join the
death wail.

Farther on, a harsh grunting and growling
seemed to come from the opposite bank of a
hazelly brook along which we rode. “What?
Hush! That^s a bear,’^ ejaculated Black in
a gruff bearish undertone. ^‘Yes,’^ said [I],
“some rough old bruin is sauntering this fine
night, seeking some wayside sheep lost from
migrating flocks.’^ Of course all night-sounds
otherwise imaccountable are accredited to
bears. On ascending a sloping hillock less than
a mile from the first we heard another grunting

22

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

bear, but whether or no daylight would trans¬
form our bears to pigs may well be counted
into the story.

Past Bower Cave and along a narrow wind¬
ing trail in deep shadow — so dark, had to
throw the reins on Browny^s neck and trust to
his skill, for I could not see the ground and the
hillside was steep. A fine, bright tributary of
the Merced sang far beneath us as we climbed
higher, higher through the hazels and dog¬
woods that fringed the rough black boles of
spruces and pines. We wdre now nearing the
old camping ground of the Pilot Peak region
where I learned to know the large nodding
lilies (L. pardalinum) so abundant along these
streams, and the groups of alder-shaded cata¬
racts so characteristic of the North Merced
Fork. Moonlight whitened all the long fluted
slopes of the opposite bank, but we rode in
continuous shadow. The rush and gurgle and
prolonged Aaaaaah of the stream coming up,
sifting into the wind, was very solemnly im¬
pressive. It was here that you first seemed to
join me. I reached up as Browny carried me
underneath a big Douglas spruce and plucked
one of its long plumy sprays, which brought
you from the Oakland dead in a moment. You
are more spruce than pine, though I never defi¬
nitely knew it till now.

23

JOHN MUIR

Miles and miles of tree scripture along the
sky, a bible that will one day be read! The
beauty of its letters and sentences have burned
me like fire through all these Sierra seasons.
Yet I cannot interpret their hidden thoughts.
They are terrestrial expressions of the sun,
pure as water and snow. Heavens! listen to
the wind song! I^m still writing beneath
that grand old pine in Black^s yard and that
other companion, scarcely less noble, back of
which I sheltered during the earthquake, is
just a few yards beyond. The shadows of their
boles lie hke charred logs on the gray sand,
while half the yard is embroidered with their
branches and leaves. There goes a woodpecker
with an acorn to drive into its thick bark for
winter, and well it may gather its stores, for I
can myself detect winter in the wind.

Few nights of my mountain life have been
more eventful than that of my ride in the woods
from Coulterville, where I made my reunion
with the winds and pines. It was eleven o’clock
when we reached Black’s ranch. I was weary
and soon died in sleep. How cool and vital and
recreative was the hale young mountain air.
On higher, higher up into the holy of hofies of
the woods! Pure white lustrous clouds over¬
shadowed the massive congregations of silver
fir and pine. We entered, and a thousand living

24

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

arms were waved in solemn blessing. An in¬
finity of mountain life. How complete is the
absorption of one^s life into the spirit of moun¬
tain woods. No one can love or hate an enemy
here, for no one can conceive of such a creature
as an enemy. Nor can one have any distinctive
love of friends. The dearest and best of you all
seemed of no special account, mere trifles.

Hazel Green water, famous among moun¬
taineers, distilled from the pores of an ancient
moraine, spiced and toned in a maze of fragrant
roots, winter nor summer warm or cool it!
Shadows over shadows keep its fountains ever
cool. Moss and felted leaves guard from spring
and autumn frosts, while a woolly robe of snow
protects from the intenser cold of winter.
Bears, deer, birds, and Indians love the water
and nuts of Hazel Green alike, while the pine
squirrel reigns supreme and haunts its incom¬
parable groves like a spirit. Here a grand old
glacier swept over from the Tuolumne ice
fountains into the basin of the Merced, leaving
the Hazel Green moraine for the food of her
coming trees and fountains of her predestined
waters.

Along the Merced divide to the ancient gla¬
cial lake-bowl of Crane^s Flat, was ever fir or
pine more perfect? What groves! WFat com¬
binations of green and silver gray and glowing

25

i

JOHN MUm

white of glinting sunbeams. Where is leaf or
limb awanting, and is this the upshot of the
so-called mountain glooms^’ and mountain
storms? If so, is Sierra forestry aught beside
an outflow of Divine Love? These round-
bottomed grooves sweeping across the divide,
and down whose sides our horses canter with
accelerated speed, are the pathways of ancient
ice-currents, and it is just where these crushing
glaciers have borne down most heavily that
the greatest loveliness of grove and forest ap¬
pears.

A deep canon filled with blue air now comes
in view on the right. That is the valley of the
Merced, and the highest rocks visible through
the trees belong to the Yosemite Valley. More
miles of glorious forest, then out into free fight
and down, down, down into the groves and
meadows of Yosemite. Sierra sculpture in its
entirety without the same study on the spot.
No one of the rocks seems to call me now, nor
any of the distant mountains. Surely this
Merced and Tuolunme chapter of my life is
done.

I have been out on the river bank with your
letters. How good and wise they seem to be!
You wrote better than you knew. Altogether
they form a precious volume whose sentences
are more intimately connected with my moun-

26

ON WIDENING CUERENTS

tain work than any one will ever be able to
appreciate. An ouzel came as I sat reading,
alighting in the water with a delicate and grace¬
ful glint on his bosom. How pure is the morn¬
ing light on the great gray wall, and how mar¬
velous the subdued lights of the moon! The
nights are wholly enchanting.

I will not try [to] tell the Valley. Yet I feel
that I am a stranger here. I have been gather¬
ing you a handful of leaves. Show them to dear
Keith and give some to Mrs. McChesney.
They are probably the last of Yosemite that I
will ever give you. I will go out in a day or so.
Farewell ! I seem to be more really leaving you
here than there. Keep these long pages, for
they are a kind of memorandum of my walk
after the strange Oakland epoch, and I may
want to copy some of them when I have leisure.

Remember me to my friends. I trust you
are not now so sorely overladen. Good-night.
Keep the goldenrod and yarrow. They are
auld lang syne.

Ever lovingly yours

John Muir

To take leave of Yosemite was harder than
he anticipated. Days grew into weeks as in
leisurely succession he visited his favorite
haunts — places to which during the preceding

27

JOHN MUm

summer he had taken on a camping trip ^ a
group of his closest friends, including Emily
Felton and Mrs. Carr. It was on this outing
that bears raided the provisions cached by the
party during an excursion into the Tuolumne
Canon and Muir saved his companions from
hardship by fetching a new supply of food
from Yosemite, making the arduous trip of
forty miles without pause and in an amaz¬
ingly short time.

Yosemite Valley, October 7th, 1874
Dear Mrs. Carr:

I expected to have been among the foothill
drift long ago, but the mountains fairly seized
me, and ere I knew I was up the Merced Canon
where we were last year, past Shadow and
Merced Lakes and our Soda Springs. I re¬
turned last night. Had a glorious storm, and a
thousand sacred beauties that seemed yet more
and more divine. I camped four nights at
Shadow Lake ^ at the old place in the pine
thicket. I have ouzel tales to tell. I was alone
and during the whole excursion, or period
rather, was in a kind of calm incurable ecstasy.
I am hopelessly and forever a mountaineer.

How glorious my studies seem, and how
simple. I found out a noble truth concerning

^ See vol. I, p. 322. ^ Now called Merced Lake.

28

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

the Merced moraines that escaped me hitherto.
Civilization and fever and all the morbidness
that has been hooted at me have not dimmed
my glacial eye, and I care to live only to entice
people to look at Nature’s loveliness. My own
special self is nothing. My feet have recovered
their cunning. I feel myself again.

Tell Keith the colors are coming to the
groves. I leave Yosemite for over the moun¬
tains to Mono and Lake Tahoe. Will be in
Tahoe in a week, thence anywhere Shastaward,
etc. I think I may be at Brownsville, Yuba
County/', where I may get a letter from you. I
promised to call on Emily Felton there. Mrs.
Black has fairly mothered me. She will be
down in a few weeks. Farewell.

John Muir

Having worked the Yosemite problem out of
his blood he was faced with the question of the
next step in his career. Apparently while de¬
bating with others the character of the rela¬
tion which Nature should sustain to man he
had found his calling, one in which his glacial
studies in Yosemite formed only an incident,
though a large one. Hereafter his supreme pur¬
pose in life must be ^Ho entice people to look
at Nature’s loveliness” — understandingly, of
course.

29

JOHN MUIR

In the seventies, before lumber companies,
fires, and the fumes from copper smelters had
laid a blight upon the Shasta landscapes, the
environs of the great mountain were a veri¬
table garden of the Lord. Its famous mineral
springs and abundant fish and game, no less
than its snowy grandeur, attracted a steady
stream of visitors. Clarence King had discov¬
ered glaciers on its flanks and many parts of
the mountain were still imperfectly explored.
The year was waning into late October when
Muir, seeking new treasuries of Nature^s love¬
liness, turned his face Shastaward.

In going to Mount Shasta, Muir walked
along the main Oregon and California stage-
road from Redding to Sisson^s. Unable to find
any one willing to make the ascent of the
mountain with him so late in the season, he
secured the aid of Jerome Fay, a local resident,
to take blankets and a week’s supply of food as
far as a pack-horse could break through the
snow. Selecting a sheltered spot for a camp in
the upper edge of the timber belt, he made his
adventurous ascent alone from there on the
2d of November, and returned to his camp be¬
fore dark. Realizing that a storm was brewing,
he hastily made a storm-nest” and snugged
himself in with firewood to enjoy the novel
sensation of a Shasta storm at an altitude of

30

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

nine thousand feet. The elements broke loose
violently the next morning, and continued for
nearly a week, while Muir, his trusty notebook
in hand, watched the deposition of snow upon
the trees, studied the individual crystals with
a lens, observed a squirrel finding her stores
imder the drifts, and made friends with wild
sheep that sought shelter near his camp. He
was much disappointed when Mr. Sisson, con¬
cerned for his safety, sent two horses through
the blinding snowstorm and brought him down
on the fifth day from the timber-line to his
house. The following letter was written just
before he began the first stage of the ascent:

To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr
Sisson’s Station, November 1st, 1874
Dear Mrs. Carr:

Here is icy Shasta fifteen miles away, yet at
the very door. It is all close-wrapt in clean
yoimg snow down to the very base — one mass
of white from the dense black forest-girdle at
an elevation of five or six thousand feet to the
very summit. The extent of its individuality is
perfectly wonderful. When I first caught sight
of it over the braided folds of the Sacramento
Valley I was fifty miles away and afoot, alone
and weary. Yet all my blood turned to wine,
and I have not been weary since.

31

I

JOHN MUIR

Stone was to have accompanied me, but has
failed of course. The last storm was severe and
all the mountaineers shake their heads and say
impossible, etc., but you know that I will meet
all its icy snows lovingly.

I set out in a few minutes for the edge of the
timber-line. Then upwards, if unstormy, in
the early morning. If the snow proves to be
mealy and loose it is barely possible that I may
be unable to urge my way through so many up¬
ward miles, as there is no intermediate camping
ground. Yet I am feverless and strong now,
and can spend two days with their intermediate
night in one deliberate unstrained effort.

I am the more eager to ascend to study the
mechanical conditions of the fresh snow at so
great an elevation; also to obtain clear views of
the comparative quantities of lava denudation
northward and southward; also general views
of the channels of the ancient Shasta glaciers,
and many other lesser problems besides — the
fountains of the rivers here, and the hving
glaciers. I would like to remain a week or two,
and may have to return next year in summer.

I wrote a short letter ^ a few days ago which
was printed in the Evening Bulletin, and I sup¬
pose you have seen it. I wonder how you all

1 “Salmon Breeding on the McCloud River,” San Fran¬
cisco Evening Bulletin, Oct. 29, 1874.

32

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

are faring in your wildernesses, educational,
departmental, institutional, etc. Write me a
line here in care of Sisson. I think it will reach
me on my return from icy Shasta. Love to all
— Keith and the boys and the McChesneys.
DonT forward any letters from the Oakland
office. I want only mountains until my return
to civilization. Farewell.

Ever cordially yours

John Muir

One of Muir^s endearing traits was his gen¬
uine fondness for children, who rewarded his
sympathy with touching confidence and devo¬
tion. The following letter, written to his ad¬
miring little chum ^ in the McChesney house¬
hold, sheds additional light upon his Shasta
rambles and the mood, so different from mere
adventure-seeking, in which he went questing
for knowledge of Nature.

To Alice McChesney

if ^ . Sisson’s Station

Foot of Mount Shasta
November 8th, 1874

My dear Highland lassie Alice :

It is a stormy day here at the foot of the big
snowy Shasta and so I am in Sisson^s house

^ See vol. I, p. 372.

33

JOHN MUIR

where it is cozy and warm. There are four
lassies here — one is bonnie, one is bonnier,
and one is far bonniest, but I donT know them
yet and I am a little lonesome and wish Alice
McChesney were here. I can never help think¬
ing that you were a little unkind in sending me
off to the mountains without a kiss and you
must make that up when I get back.

I was up on the top of Mount Shasta, and it
is very high and all deep-buried in snow, and I
am tired with the hard climbing and wading
and wallowing. When I was coming up here on
purpose to chmb Mount Shasta people would
often say to me, ^‘WTiere are you going? and
I would say, ^^To Shasta,’’ and they would
say, Shasta City?” and I would say, ^^Oh,
no, I mean Mount Shasta!” Then they would
laugh and say, Mount Shasta!! Wliy man,
you can’t go on Mount Shasta now. You’re
two months too late. The snow is ten feet deep
on it, and you would be all buried up in the
snow, and freeze to death.” And then I would
say, ^^But I hke snow, and I like frost and ice,
and I’m used to chmbing and wallowing in it.”
And they would say, ^^Oh, that’s all right
enough to talk about or sing about, but I’m a
mountaineer myself, and know all about that
Shasta Butte and you just can’t go noway and
nohow.” But I did go, because I loved snow

34

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

and mountains better than they did. Some
places I had to creep, and some places to slide,
and some places to scramble, but most places I
had to climb, climb, climb deep in the frosty
snow.

I started at half-past two in the morning, all
alone, and it stormed wildly and beautifully
before I got back here and they thought that
poor, crazy mountain climber must be frozen
solid and lost below the drifts, but I foimd a
place at the foot of a low bunch of trees and
made a hollow and gathered wood and built a
cheery fire and soon was warm; and though the
wind and the snow swept wildly past, I was
snug-bug-rug, and in three days I came down
here. But I hked the storm and wanted to
stay longer.

The weather is stormy yet, and most of the
robins are getting ready to go away to a
warmer place, and so they are gathering into
big flocks. I saw them getting their breakfast
this morning on cherries. Some hunters are
here and so we get plenty of wild venison to eat,
and they killed two bears and nailed their
skins on the side of the barn to dry. There are
lots of both bears and deer on Shasta, and
three kinds of squirrels.

Shasta snowflakes are very beautiful, and
I saw them finely under my magnifying glass.

35

JOHN MUIR

Here are some bonnie Cratsegus leaves I
gathered for you. Fare ye well, my lassie. I’m
going to-morrow with some hunters to see if I
can find out something more about bears or
wild sheep.

Give my love to your mother and father and
Carrie, and tell your mother to keep my letters
until I come back, for I don’t want to know
anything just now except mountains. But I
want your papa to write to me, for I will be up
here, hanging about the snowy skirts of Shasta,
for one or two or three weeks.

It is a dark, wild night, and the Shasta
squirrels are curled up cozily in their nests, and
the grouse have feather pantlets on and are all
roosting imder the broad, shaggy branches of
the fir trees. Good-night, my lassie, and may
you nest well and sleep well — as the Shasta
squirrels and grouse. John Muik

During the following weeks he circled the
base of the mountain, visited the Black Butte
and the foot of the Whitney Glacier, as well as
Rhett and Klamath lakes, and gathered into
his notebook a rich harvest of observations to
be made into magazine articles later. Some of
the material, however, he utilized at once in a
series of letters to the Evening Bulletin” of
San Francisco.

36

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

In explanation of various allusions in some
of the following letters to Mrs. Carr, it should
be added that she and her husband had in
view, and later acquired, a tract of land in
what was then the outskirts of Pasadena.
Both had been very active in organizing the
farmers of California into a State Grange in
1873. Two years later Dr. Carr was elected
State Superintendent of Public Instruction,
and during his incumbency Mrs. Carr served
as deputy Superintendent, discharging most of
the routine work of the office in Sacramento,
besides lecturing before granges and teachers’
institutes throughout the State. There were
many quarreling political factions in California,
and the Grangers’ movement and the Depart¬
ment of Public Instruction were never far from
the center of the political storms.

To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr
Sisson’s Station, December 9thf 1874
Dear Mrs. Carr:

Coming in for a sleep and rest I was glad to
receive your card. I seem to be more than
married to icy Shasta. One yellow, mellow
morning six days ago, when Shasta’ s snows were
looming and blooming, I stepped outside the
door to gaze, and was instantly drawn up over
the meadows, over the forests to the main

37

JOHN MUIR

Shasta glacier in one rushing, cometic whiz,
then, swooping to Shasta Valley, whirled off
around the base like a satellite of the grand icy
sun. I have just completed my first revolu¬
tion. Length of orbit, one himdred miles;
time, one Shasta day.

For two days and a half I had nothing in the
way of food, yet suffered nothing, and was
finely nerved for the most delicate work of
mountaineering, both among crevasses and
lava cliffs. Now I am sleeping and eating, I
found some geological facts that are perfectly
glorious, and botanical ones, too.

I wish I could make the pubhc be kind to
Keith and his paint.

And so you contemplate vines and oranges
among the warm California angels! I wish you
would all go a-granging among oranges and
bananas and all such blazing red-hot fruits, for
you are a species of Hindoo sun fruit yourself.
For me, I like better the huckleberries of cool
glacial bogs, and acid currants, and benevolent,
rosy, beaming apples, and common Indian
summer pumpkins.

I wish you could see the holy morning alpen-
glow of Shasta.

Farewell. Ifil be down into gray Oakland
some time. I am glad you are essentially inde¬
pendent of those commonplace plotters that

38

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

have so marred your peace. Eat oranges and
hear the larks and wait on the sun.

Ever cordially

John Muir

To Mrs, Ezra S, Carr
Sisson’s Station, December 215^, 1874
Dear Mrs. Carr:

I have just returned from a fourth Shasta ex¬
cursion, and find your [letter] of the 17th. I
wish you could have been with me on Shasta^s
shoulder last eve in the sun-glow. I was over
on the head-waters of the McCloud, and what
a head! Think of a spring giving rise to a
river! I fairly quiver with joyous exultation
when I think of it. The infinity of Nature^s
glory in rock, cloud, and water! As soon as I
beheld the McCloud upon its lower course I
knew there must be something extraordinary
in its alpine fountains, and I shouted,
where, my glorious river, do you come from?^'
Think of a spring fifty yards wide at the mouth,
issuing from the base of a lava bluff with wild
songs — not gloomily from a dark cavey
mouth, but from a world of ferns and mosses
gold and green ! I broke my way through chap¬
arral and all kinds of river-bank tangle in
eager vigor, utterly unweariable.

The dark blue stream sang solemnly with a

39

JOHN MUIR

deep voice, pooling and boulder-dashing and
aha-a-a-ing in white flashing rapids, when sud¬
denly I heard water notes I never had heard
before. They came from that mysterious
spring; and then the Elk forest, and the al¬
pine-glow, and the sunset! Poor pen cannot
tell it.

The sim this morning is at work with its
blessings as if it had never blessed before. He
never wearies of revealing himself on Shasta.
But in a few hours I leave this altar and all
its — Well, to my Father I say thank you,
and go willingly.

I go by stage and rail to Brownsville to see
Emily [Pelton] and the rocks there and the
Yuba. Then perhaps a few days among the
auriferous drifts on the Tuolunme, and then to
Oakland and that book, walking across the
Coast Range on the way, either through one of
the passes or over Mount Diablo. I feel a sort
of nervous fear of another period of town dark,
but I donT want to be silly about it. The sun
glow will all fade out of me, and I will be
deathly as Shasta in the dark. But mornings
will come, dawnings of some kind, and if not, I
have hved more than a common eternity al¬
ready.

Farewell. DonT overwork — that is not the
work your Father wants. I wish you could

40

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

come a-beeing in the Shasta honey lands. Love
to the boys. [John Muir]

On one of the excursions to which he refers
in the preceding letter, Muir accompanied four
hunters, three of them Scotchmen,^ who were
in search of wild sheep. The party went to
Sheep Rock, twenty miles north of Sisson^s,
and from there fifty miles farther to Mount
Bremer, then one of the most noted strongholds
of wild game in the Shasta region. This expedi¬
tion afforded Muir a new opportunity to study
wild sheep and his observations were charm¬
ingly utilized in the little essay ^^Wild Wool,’^
one of his last contributions to the Overland’’
in 1875, republished afterwards in Steep
Trails.”

A week after writing the above letter he was
at Emoxville, also known as Brownsville, on
the divide between the Yuba and Feather
Rivers. It was a mild, but tempestuous, De¬
cember, and during a gale that sprang up while ,
he was exploring a valley tributary to the
Yuba, he climbed a Douglas spruce in order to

1 Among these Scots was G. Buchanan Hepburn, of Had-
dingdonshire, on one of whose letters Muir made the memo¬
randum, “Lord Hepburn, killed in Mexico or Lower Cali¬
fornia.” Twenty years later, during his visit to Scotland,
Muir was by chance enabled to communicate the details of
the man's unhappy fate to his relatives.

41

JOHN MUIR

i

be able to enjoy the better the wild music of
the storm. The experience afterwards bore
fruit in one of his finest descriptions — an ar¬
ticle entitled Wind Storm in the Forests
of the Yuba/^ which appeared in ^^Scribner^s
Monthly’’ in November, 1878, and later as a
chapter in ^^The Mountains of California.”
With the possible exception of his dog story,
^^Stickeen,” no article drew more enthusiastic
comments from readers who felt moved to
write their appreciation.

From his earliest youth Muir had derived
keen enjoyment from storms, but he had never
tried to give a reason for the joy that was in
him. The reaction he got from the reading
public showed that they regarded his enthusi¬
asm for storms as admirable, but also as singu¬
lar. The latter was a surprise to Muir, who
regarded all the manifestations of Nature as
coming within the range of his interest, and
saw no reason why men should /ear storms. Re¬
flecting upon the fact, he reached the conclusion
that such fear is due to a wrong attitude
toward nature, to imaginary or grossly exag¬
gerated notions of danger, or, in short, to a
^Tack of faith in the Scriptures of Nature,” as,
he averred, was the case with Ruskin. As for
himself, a great storm was nothing but “o,
cordial outpouring of Nature’s love.”

42

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

By what he regarded as a fortunate coin¬
cidence, he was still on the headwaters of the
Feather and the Yuba rivers on the date of
the memorable Marysville flood, January 19,
1875. A driving warm rainstorm suddenly
melted the heavy snows that filled the drainage
basins of these rivers and sent an unprece¬
dented flood down into the lowlands, submerg¬
ing many homesteads and a good part of
Marysville. One can almost sense the haste
with which he dashed off the lines of the follow¬
ing letter on the morning of the day of the
flood — impatient to heed the call of the storm.

To Mrs, Ezra S. Carr

Brownsville, Yuba County
January V^th, 1875

My deae Mother Carr:

Here are some of the dearest and bonniest of
our Father’s bairns — the little ones that so
few care to see. I never saw such enthusiasm in
the care and breeding of mosses as Nature man¬
ifests among these northern Sierras. I have
studied a big fruitful week among the canons
and ridges of the Feather and another among
the Yuba rivers, living and dead.

I have seen a dead river — a sight worth going
round the world to see. The dead rivers and
dead gravels wherein lies the gold form mag-

43

JOHN MUIR

nificent problems, and I feel wild and unman¬
ageable with the intense interest they excite,
but I will choke myself off and finish my glacial
work and that fit tie book of studies. I have
been spending a few fine social days with Emily
[Pelton], but now work.

How gloriously it storms! The pines are in
ecstasy, and I feel it and must go out to them.
I must borrow a big coat and mingle in the
storm and make some studies. Farewell. Love
to all.

M.

P.S. How are Ned and Keith? I wish Keith
had been with me these Shasta and Feather
River days. I have gained a thousandfold more
than I hoped. Heaven send you Light and
the good blessings of wildness. How the rains
plash and roar, and how the pines wave and
pray!

Tradition still tells of his return to the Knox
House after the storm, dripping and bedrag¬
gled; of the pity and solicitude of his friends
over his condition, and their surprise when he
in turn pitied them for having missed ^^a storm
of exalted beauty and riches.’^ The account of
his experience was his final contribution to the
^^Overland Monthly’^ in June, 1875, under the

44

ON WIDENING CURRENTS

title, “A Flood-Storm in the Sierra/’ Nowhere
has he revealed his fervid enjoyment of storms
more unreservedly than in this article.^ ^^How
terribly downright,” he observes, ^^must be
the utterances of storms and earthquakes to
those accustomed to the soft hypocrisies of
society. Man’s control is being extended over
the forces of nature, but it is well, at least for
the present, that storms can still make them¬
selves heard through our thickest walls. . . .
Some were made to think.”

There was a new note in his discourses,
written and spoken, when he emerged from the
forests of the Yuba. Fear and utihtarianism,
he was convinced, are a crippling equipment
for one who wishes to understand and appreci¬
ate the beauty of the world about him. But
meanness of soul is even worse. Herded in cit¬
ies, where the struggle for gain sweeps along
with the crowd even the exceptional individual,
men rarely come in sight of their better selves.
There is more hope for those whohve in the
country. But instead of listening to the earnest
and varied voices of nature, the country resi¬
dent, also, is too often of the shepherd type who
can only hear ^^baa.” ^‘Even the howls and

^ It was incorporated in part only as the chapter on “The
River Floods’’ in The Mountains of California. The omitted
portions are important to a student of Muir’s personality.

45

\

JOHN MUIR

Id-yis of coyotes might be blessings if well
heard, but he hears them only through a blur
of mutton and wool, and they do him no good.^’
Despite these abnormalities, Muir insisted,
we must live in close contact with nature if we
are to keep fresh and clean the fountains of
moral sanity. The world needs the woods and
is beginning to come to them,’’ he asserts in his
flood-storm article. ‘^But it is not yet ready
. . . for storms. . . . Nevertheless the world
moves onward, and dt is coming yet, for a’
that,’ that the beauty of storms will be as
visible as that of calms.”

CHAPTER XII

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS ’’
1875-1878

When out of doors, Muir was scarcely con¬
scious of the passage of time, so completely
was he absorbed, almost physically absorbed,
in the natural objects about him. The moun¬
tains, the stars, the trees, and sweet-belled
Cassiope recked not of time! Why should
he? Nor was he at such periods burdened
with thoughts of a calling. On the contrary, he
rejoiced in his freedom and, like Thoreau,
sought by honest labor of any sort only means
enough to preserve it intact.

But when he came out of the forests, or down
from the mountains, and had to take account,
in letters and personal contacts, of the hves,
loves, and occupations of relatives and friends,
he sometimes was brought up sharply agamst
the fact that he had reached middle age and
yet had neither a home nor what most men in
those days would have recognized as a pro¬
fession. Then, as in the following letter, one
catches a note of apology for the life he is lead¬
ing. He can only say, and say it triumphantly,

47

JOHN MUIR

that the course of his bark is controlled by
other stars than theirs, that he must be free to
live by the laws of his own life.

To Sarah Muir Galloway

Oakland, {February 2Uh,] 1875
My dear Sister Sarah:

I have just returned from a long train of ex¬
cursions in the Sierras and find yours and many
other letters waiting, all that accumulated for
five months. I spent my holidays on the Yuba
and Feather rivers exploring. I have, of comse,
worked hard and enjoyed hard, ascending
mountains, crossing canons, rambling cease¬
lessly over hill and dale, plain and lava bed.

I thought of you all gathered with your little
ones enjoying the sweet and simple pleasures
that belong to your lives and loves. I have not
yet in all my wanderings found a single person
so free as myself. Yet I am bound to my stud¬
ies, and the laws of my own life. At times I feel
as if driven with whips, and ridden upon. When
in the woods I sit at times for hours watching
birds or squirrels or looking down into the
faces of fiowers without suffering any feeling of
haste. Yet I am swept onward in a general cur¬
rent that bears on irresistibly. When, there¬
fore, I shall be allowed to float homeward, I
dinna, dinna ken, but I hope.

48

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

The world, as well as the mountains, is good
to me, and my studies flow on in a wider and
wider current by the incoming of many a noble
tributary. Probably if I were hving amongst
you all you would follow me in my scientific
work, but as it is, you will do so imperfectly.
However, when I visit you, you will all have to
submit to numerous lectures. . . .

Give my love to David and to Mrs. Galloway
and all your little ones, and remember me as
ever lovingly your brother,

John

On the 28th of April he led a party to the
summit of Mount Shasta for the purpose of
finding a proper place to locate the momunent
of the Coast and Geodetic Survey. Two days
later he made another ascent with Jerome Fay
in order to complete some barometrical obser¬
vations. While engaged in this task a fierce
storm arose, enveloping them, with great sud¬
denness, in inky darkness through which roared
a blast of snow and hail. His companion
deemed it impossible imder the circumstances
to regain their camp at timber-line, so the two
made their way as best they could to the sput¬
tering fumaroles or “Hot Springs’^ on the sum¬
mit. The perils of that stormy night, described
at some length in “Steep Trails,’^ were of a

49

1

JOHN MUlR

much more serious natme than one might infer
from the casual reference to the adventure in
the following letter.

To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr

1419 Taylor St., May Uh, 1S7^
Dear Mrs. Carr:

Here I am safe in the arms of Daddy Swett
— home again from icy Shasta and richer than
ever in dead river gravel and in snowstorms
and snow. The upper end of the main Sacra¬
mento Valley is entirely covered with ancient
river drift and I wandered over many square
miles of it. In every pebble I could hear the
sounds of running water. The whole deposit is
a poem whose many books and chapters form
the geological Vedas of our glorious state.

I discovered a new species of hail on the sum¬
mit of Shasta and experienced one of the most
beautiful and most violent snowstorms imagin¬
able. I would have been with you ere this to tell
you about it and to give you some lilies and
pine tassels that I brought for you and Mrs.
McChesney and Ina Coolbrith, but alack! I
am battered and scarred hke a log that has
come down the Tuolumne in flood-time, and
I am also lame with frost nipping. Nothing
serious, however, and I will be well and better
than before in a few days.

50

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

I was caught in a violent snowstorm and
held upon the summit of the mountain all night
in my shirt sleeves. The intense cold and the
want of food and sleep made the fire of life
smoulder and burn low. Nevertheless in com¬
pany with another strong mountaineer [Jerome
Fay] I broke through six miles of frosty snow
down into the timber and reached fire and food
and sleep and am better than ever, with all the
valuable experiences. Altogether I have had a
very instructive and delightful trip.

The Bryanthus you wanted was snow-
buried, and I was too lame to dig it out for you,
but I will probably go back ere long. IT be
over in a few days or so. [John Muir]

With the approach of summer, Muir returned
to the Yosemite and Mount Whitney region,
taking with him his friends William Keith,
J. B. McChesney, and John Swett. In the letters
he wrote from there to the '^San Francisco
Evening Bulletin’^ one feels that the forest
trees of the Sierra Nevada are getting a deep¬
ening hold upon his imagination. “Through¬
out all this glorious region,’^ he vrites, “there
is nothing that so constantly mterests and chal¬
lenges the admiration of the traveller as the
belts of forest through which he passes.^^

Of all the trees of the forest the dearest to

61

JOHN MUm

him was the sugar pine (Pinus Lamhertiana) ,
and he frequently refers to it as the ^^King
of the pines/’ “Many a volume/’ he declares
in one of the letters written on this outing,
“might be filled with the history of its develop¬
ment from the brown whirling-winged seed-nut
to its ripe and Godlike old age; the quantity
and range of its individuality, its gestures in
storms or while sleeping in summer light, the
quality of its sugar and nut, and the glossy
fragrant wood” — all are distinctive. But, as
his notebooks and some of the following letters
show, he now begins to make an intensive study
of all the trees of the Pacific Coast, particularly
of the redwood. Thus, quite unconsciously, he
was in training to become the leading defender
of the Sierra forests during critical emergencies
that arose in the nineties.

To Mrs, Ezra S. Carr

Yosemite Valley, June 3d, 1875
Dear Mrs. Carr:

Where are you? Lost in conventions, elec¬
tions, women’s rights and fights, and buried
beneath many a load of musty granger hay.
You always seem inaccessible to me, as if you
were in a crowd, and even when I write, my
written words seem to be heard by many that I
do not like.

52

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

I wish some of your predictions given in
your last may come true, like the first you made
long ago. Yet somehow it seems hardly hkely
that you will ever be sufficiently free, for your
labors multiply from year to year. Yet who
knows.

I foimd poor Lamon^s^ grave, as you di¬
rected. The upper end of the Valley seems
fairly silent and empty without him.

Keith got fine sketches, and I foimd new
beauties and truths of all kinds. Mack [Mc-
Chesney] and Swett will tell you all. I send
you my buttonhole plume.

Farewell.

John Muib

To Mrs, Ezra S, Carr

Black’s Hotel
Yosemite, California
July Zlst, 1875

Dear Mrs. Carr:

I have just arrived from our long excursion
to Mount Whitney, all hale and happy, and
find your weary plodding letter, containing
things that from this rocky standpoint seem
strangely mixed — things celestial and terres¬
trial, cultivated and wild. Your letters set one

^ James C. Lamon, pioneer settler of Yosemite Valley,
who died May 22, 1875. See characterization of him in
Muir’s The Yoeermte.

53

1

JOHN MUIR

a-thinking, and yet somehow they never seem
to make those problems of life clear, and I al¬
ways feel glad that they do not form any part
of my work, but that my lessons are simple
rocks and waters and plants and humble beasts,
all pure and in their places, the Man beast
with all his comphcations being laid upon
stronger shoulders.

I did not bring you down any Sedum roots
or Cassiope sprays because I had not then re¬
ceived your letter, not that I forgot you as I
passed the blessed Sierra heathers, or the prim¬
ulas, or the pines laden with fragrant, nutty
cones. But I am more and more made to feel
that my gardens and herbariums and woods
are all in their places as they grow, and I know
them there, and can find them when I will. Yet
I ought to carry their poor dead or dying forms
to those who can have no better.

The Valley is lovely, scarce more than a
whit the worse for the flower-crushing feet
that every summer brings. ... I am not de¬
cided about my summer. I want to go with the
Sequoias a month or two into all their homes
from north to south, learning what I can
of their conditions and prospects, their age,
stature, the area they occupy, etc. But John
Swett, who is brother now, papa then, orders
me home to booking. Bless me, what an awful

64

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

thing town duty is! I was once free as any
pine-playing wind, and feel that I have still a
good length of line, but alack! there seems to be
a hook or two of civilization in me that I would
fain pull out, yet would not 'pull out — 0, O,
0!!!

I suppose you are weary of saying book,
book, book, and perhaps when you fear me lost
in rocks and Mono deserts I will, with Scotch
perverseness, do all you ask and more. All this
letter is about myself, and why not when I’m
the only person in all the wide world that I
know anything about — Keith, the cascade,
not excepted.

Fare ye well, mother quail, good betide your
brood and be they and you saved from the
hawks and the big ugly buzzards and cormo¬
rants — grangeal, political, right and wrongical,
— and I will be

Ever truly

John Muir

“Only that and nothing more.”

To Sarah Muir Galloway

Yosemite Valley, November 2ndj 1875
Dear Sister Sarah:

Here is your letter with the Dalles in it. I’m
glad you have escaped so long from the cows
and sewing and baking to God’s green wild

65

JOHN MUIR

Dalles and dells, for I know you were young
again and that the natural love of beauty you
possess had free, fair play. I shall never forget
the big happy day I spent there on the rocky,
gorgey Wisconsin above ICilbourn City. What
lanes full of purple orchids and ferns! Aspi~
dium fragrans I found there for the first time,
and what hillsides of huckleberries and rare
asters and goldenrods. Don’t you wish you
were wild like me and as free to satisfy your
love for whatever is pure and beautiful?

I returned last night from a two and a haK
months’ excursion through the grandest por¬
tion of the Sierra Nevada forests. You re¬
member reading of the big trees of Calaveras
County, discovered fifteen or twenty years ago.
Well, I have been studying the species {Sequoia
gigantea) and have been all this time wandering
amid those giants. They extend in a broken,
interrupted belt along the western flank of the
range a distance of one hundred and eighty
miles. But I will not attempt to describe them
here. I have written about them and will send
you printed descriptions.

I fancy your little flock is growing fast to¬
wards prime. Yet how short seems the time
when you occupied your family place on Hick¬
ory Hill. Our lives go on and close like a day —
morning, noon, night. Yet how full of purehap-

56

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

piness these life days may be, and how worthy
of the God that plans them and suns them!

The book you speak of is not yet commenced,
but I must go into winter quarters at once and
go to work. While in the field I can only ob¬
serve — take in, but give nothing out. The
first winter snow is just now falling on Yose-
mite rocks. The domes are whitened, and ere
long avalanches will rush with loud boom and
roar, hke new-made waterfalls. The November
number of ‘^Harper^s Monthly’’ contains ^Miv-
ing Glaciers of California.” The illustrations
are from my pencil sketches, some of which
were made when my fingers were so benumbed
with frost I could scarcely hold my pencil.

Give my love to David and the children and
Mrs. Galloway, and I will hope yet to see you
all. But now, once more, Farewell.

[John Muir]

In tracing out the main forest belt of the
Sierra Nevada, as Muir did during these years,
he became appalled by the destructive forces
at work therein. No less than five sawmills
were found operating in the edge of the Big
Tree belt. On account of the size of the trees
and the difficulty of felling them, they were
blasted down with dynamite, a proceeding that
added a new element of criminal waste to the

57

JOHN MUIR

terrible destruction. The noble Fresno grove
of Big Trees and the one situated on the north
fork of the Raweah already were fearfully
ravaged. The wonderful grove on the north
fork of the Kings River still was intact, but a
man by the name of Charles Converse had just
formed a company to reduce it to cheap lumber
in the usual wasteful manner.

Hoping to arouse California legislators to at
least the economic importance of checking this
destruction he sent to the “ Sacramento Record-
Union’^ a communication entitled God’s
First Temples,” with the sub-heading, ^^How
Shall we Preserve our Forests?” It appeared
on February 5, 1876, and while it made little
impression upon legislators it made Muir the
center around which conservation sentiment
began to crystalhze. Few at this time had
pointed out, as he did, the practical importance
of conserving the forests on account of their
relation to climate, soil, and water-flow in the
streams. The deadflest enemies of the forests
and the public good, he declared, were not the
sawmills in spite of their slash fires and waste¬
fulness. That unsavory distinction belonged
to the sheep-men,” as they were called, and
Muir’s indictment of them in the above-
mentioned article, based upon careful observa¬
tion, ran as follows:

58

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

Incredible numbers of sheep are driven to the
mountain pastures every summer, and in order to
make easy paths and to improve the pastures, run¬
ning fires are set everywhere to burn off the old logs
and underbrush. These fires are far more universal
and destructive than would be guessed. They sweep
through nearly the entire forest belt of the range
from one extremity to the other, and in the dry
weather, before the coming on of winter storms, are
very destructive to all kinds of young trees, and
especially to sequoia, whose loose, fibrous bark
catches and burns at once. Excepting the Cala¬
veras, I, last summer, examined every sequoia grove
in the range, together with the main belt extending
across the basins of Kaweah and Tule, and found
everywhere the most deplorable waste from this
cause. Indians burn off underbrush to facilitate
deer-hunting. Campers of all kinds often permit
fires to run, so also do mill-men, but the fires of
“sheep-men’^ probably form more than ninety per
cent of all destructive fires that sweep the woods.
. . . Whether our loose- jointed Government is
really able or willing to do anything in the matter
remains to be seen. If our law-makers were to dis¬
cover and enforce any method tending to lessen even
in a small degree the destruction going on, they
would thus cover a multitude of legislative sins in
the eyes of every tree lover. I am satisfied, however,
that the question can be intelligently discussed only
after a careful survey of our forests has been made,
together with studies of the forces now acting upon
them.

The concluding suggestion bore fruit years

59

JOHN MUIR

afterward when President Cleveland, in 1896,
appointed a commission to report upon the
condition of the national forest areas.

To Sarah Muir Galloway

1419 Taylor St., San Francisco
April 17th, 1876

Dear Sister Sarah:

I was glad the other day to have the hard
continuous toil of book writing interrupted by
the postman handing in your letter. It is full
of news, but I can think of little to put in the
letter you ask for.

My life these days is like the life of a glacier,
one eternal grind, and the top of my head suf¬
fers a weariness at times that you know nothing
about. I^m glad to see by the hills across the
bay, all yellow and purple with buttercups and
gilias, that spring is blending fast into summer,
and soon I’ll throw down my pen, and take up
my heels to go mountaineering once more.

My first book is taking shape now, and is
mostly written, but still far from complete. I
hope to see it in print, rubbed, and scrubbed,
and elaborated, some time next year.

Among the unlooked-for burdens fate is
loading upon my toil-doomed shoulders, is this
literature and lecture tour. I suppose I will be
called upon for two more addresses in San

60

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

Francisco ere I make my annual hegira to the
woods. A few weeks ago I lectured at San Jose
and Oakland.

I’m glad to hear of the general good health
and welfare of our scattered and multiplied fam¬
ily, of Katie’s returning health, and Joanna’s.
Remember me warmly to Mrs. Galloway, tell
her I will be in Wisconsin in two or three years,
and hope to see her, still surrounded by her
many affectionate friends. I was pleasantly sur¬
prised to notice the enclosed clipping to-day in
the ^^N.Y. Tribune.” I also read a notice of a
book by Professor James Law of Cornell Uni¬
versity, whom I used to play with. I met one
of his scholars a short time ago. Give my love
to David and all your little big ones.

Ever very affectionately yours

John Muir

To Sarah Muir Galloway

1419 Taylor St., San Francisco
January Vlth, [1877]

Dear Sister Sarah:

I received your welcome letter to-day. I was
beginning to think you were neglecting me.
The sad news of dear old Mrs. Galloway,
though not unexpected, makes me feel that I
have lost a friend. Few lives are so beautiful
and complete as hers, and few could have had

61

JOHN MUIR

the glorious satisfaction, in dying, to know that
so few words spoken were other than kind, and
so few deeds that did anything more than
augment the happiness of others. How many
really good people waste, and worse than waste,
their short lives in mean bickerings, when they
might lovingly, in broad Christian charity, en¬
joy the glorious privilege of doing plain, simple,
every-day good. Mrs. Galloway^s character
was one of the most beautiful and perfect I
ever knew.

How delightful it is for you all to gather on
the holidays, and what a grand multitude you
must make when you are all mustered. Little
did I think when I used to be, and am now,
fonder of home and still domestic life than any
one of the boys, that I only should be a bache¬
lor and doomed to roam always far outside the
family circle. But we are governed more than
we know and are driven with whips we know
not where. Your pleasures, and the happiness
of your lives in general, are far greater than you
know, being clustered together, yet independ¬
ent, and living in one of the most beautiful
regions imder the sun. Long may you all live
to enjoy your blessings and to learn to love one
another and make sacrifices for one another's
good.

You inquire about [my] books. The others

62

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

I spoke of are a book of excursions, another on
Yosemite and the adjacent mountains, and
another Studies in the Sierra’’ (scientific).
The present volume will be descriptive of the
Sierra animals, birds, forests, falls, glaciers,
etc., which, if I live, you will see next fall or
winter. I have not written enough to compose
with much facility, and as I am also very care¬
ful and have but a limited vocabulary, I make
slow progress. Still, although I never meant
to write the results of my explorations, now I
have begun I rather enjoy it and the public do
me the credit of reading all I write, and paying
me for it, which is some satisfaction, and I will
not probably fail in my first effort on the book,
inasmuch as I always make out to accomplish
in some way what I undertake.

I don’t write regularly for anything, al¬
though I’m said to be a regular correspondent
of the [San Francisco] Evening Bulletin,”
and have the privilege of writing for it when I
like. Harper’s have two unpubhshed illus¬
trated articles of mine, but after they pay for
them they keep them as long as they like, some¬
times a year or more, before publishing.

Love to David and George, and all your fine
lassies, and love, dear Sarah, to yourself.

From your wandering brother

[John Mum]

63

JOHN MUIR

The following letter invites comment. Until
far into the later years of his life Muir wrote
by preference with quills which he cut himself.
Over against his bantering remark, that the
pen he sends her may be a goose quill after all,
should be set the fact that among the mementos
preserved by his sister Sarah is a quill-pen
wrapped with a cutting from one of John^s
letters which reads, ^^Your letter about the
first book recalls old happy days on the moun¬
tains. The pen you speak of was made of a
wing-feather of an eagle, picked up on Mount
Hoffman, back a few miles from Yosemite.’’
The book he wrote with it did not see the light
of day, at least in the form which he then gave
it, and it is not certain what it contained
beyond glowing descriptions of Sierra forests
and scenery, and appeals for their preservation.
That ^Hhe world needs the woods’^ has now
become more than a sentimental conviction
with him; the moral and economic aspects of
the question begin to emerge strongly. One
likes to think it a fact of more than poetic sig¬
nificance that such a book by such a man was
written with a quill from an eagle’s wing, and
that the most patriotic service ever rendered
by an American eagle was that of the one who
contributed a wing pinion to John Muir for the
defense of the western forests.

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

To Sarah Muir Galloway

San Francisco, April 23rd, 1877
My dear Sister Sarah :

To thee I give and bequeath this old gray
quill with which I have written every word of
my first book, knowing, as I do, your predilec¬
tion for curiosities.

I can hardly remember its origin, but I think
it is one that I picked up on the mountains,
fallen from the wing of a golden eagle; but,
possibly, it may be only a pinion feather of
some tame old gray goose, and my love of truth
compels me to make this unpoetical statement.
The book that has grown from its whittled nib
is, however, as wild as any that has ever ap¬
peared in these tame, civilized days. Perhaps
I should have waited until the book was in
print, for it is not absolutely certain that it
will be accepted by the publishing houses. It
has first to be submitted to the tasting critics,
but as everything in the way of magazine and
newspaper articles that the old pen has ever
traced has been accepted and paid for, I
reasonably hope I shall have no difficulties in
obtaining a publisher. The manuscript has
just been sent to New York, and will be re¬
ported on in a few weeks. I leave for the moun¬
tains of Utah to-day.

The frayed upper end of the pen was pro-

65

JOHN MUIR

duced by nervous gnawing when some inter¬
ruption in my logic or rhetoric occurred from
stupidity or weariness. I gnawed the upper end
to send the thoughts below and out at the other.

Love to all your happy family and to thee
and David. The circumstances of my life since
I last bade you farewell have wrought many
changes in me, but my love for you all has only
grown greater from year to year, and whatso¬
ever befalls I shall ever be.

Yours affectionately

John Muir

The statement, in the preceding letter, that
he is leaving for the mountains of Utah, the
reader familiar with Muir’s writings will at
once connect with the vivid Utah sketches that
have appeared in the volume entitled Steep
Trails.” In the same book are found the two
articles on “The San Gabriel Valley” and
“The San Gabriel Mountains,” which grew out
of an excursion he made into southern Cali¬
fornia soon after his return from Utah.

Mrs. Carr, who in 1877 had suffered the loss
of another of her sons, was at this time prepar¬
ing to carry out her long cherished plan to re¬
tire from public life to her new home in the
South. With her for a magnet, Carmelita, as
she called it, became for a time the literary

66

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

center of southern California. There Helen
Hunt Jackson wrote the greater part of her
novel “Ramona/^ and numerous other literary
folk, both East and West, made it at one time
or another the goal of their pilgrimages. In her
spacious garden she indulged to the full her
passion for bringing together a great variety
of imusual plants, shrubs, and trees, many of
them contributed by John Muir. Dr. E. M.
Congar, mentioned in one of the following let¬
ters, had been a fellow student of Muir at the
University of Wisconsin.

To Mrs, Ezra S. Carr

SwETT HOME, July 2Srd, [1877]

Dear Mrs. Carr:

I made only a short dash into the dear old
Highlands above Yosemite, but all was so full
of everything I love, every day seemed a meas¬
ureless period. I never enjoyed the Tuolumne
cataracts so much; coming out of the sun lands,
the gray salt deserts of Utah, these wild ice
waters sang themselves into my soul more en¬
thusiastically than ever, and the forests^ breath
was sweeter, and Cassiope fairer than in all my
first fresh contacts.

But I am not going to tell it here. I only
write now to say that next Saturday I will sail
to Los Angeles and spend a few weeks in getting

67

JOHN MUIR

some general views of the adjacent region, then
work northward and begin a careful study of
the Redwood. I will at least have time this
season for the lower portion of the belt, that is
for all south of here. If you have any messages,
you may have time to write me (I sail at 10
A.M.), or if not, you may direct to Los Angeles.
I hope to see Congar, and also the spot you
have elected for home. I wish you could be
there in your grown, fruitful groves, all rooted
and grounded in the fine garden nook that I
know you will make. It must be a great con¬
solation, in the midst of the fires you are com¬
passed with, to look forward to a tranquil se¬
clusion in the South of which you are so fond.

John [Swett] says he may not move to
Berkeley, and if not I may be here this winter,
though I still feel some tendency towards an¬
other winter in some mountain den.

It is long indeed since I had anything like a
quiet talk with you. You have been going like
an avalanche for many a year, and I sometimes
fear you will not be able to settle into rest even
in the orange groves. I’m glad to know that
the Doctor is so well. You must be pained by
the shameful attacks made upon your tried
friend LaGrange. Farewell.

Ever cordially yours
John Muir

68

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

To Mrs, Ezra S. Carr

Pico House

Los Angeles, California
August \2thj 1877

Dear Mrs. Carr:

IVe seen your sunny Pasadena and the
patch called yours. Everything about here
pleases me and I felt sorely tempted to take Dr.
Congar’s advice and invest in an orange patch
myself. I feel sure you will be happy here with
the Doctor and Allie among so rich a luxuriance
of sunny vegetation. How you will dig and
dibble in that mellow loam! I cannot think of
you standing erect for a single moment, unless
it be in looking away out into the dreamy West.

I made a fine shaggy little five days^ excur¬
sion back in the heart of the San Gabriel Moun¬
tains, and then a week of real pleasure with
Congar resurrecting the past about Madison.
He has a fine little farm, fine little family, and
fine cozy home. I felt at home with Congar
and at once took possession of his premises
and all that in them is. We drove down
through the settlements eastward and saw the
best orange groves and vineyards, but the
moimtains I, as usual, met alone. Although
so gray and silent and unpromising they are
full of wild gardens and ferneries. Lilyries ! —
some specimens ten feet high with twenty lilies,

69

JOHN MUIR

big enough for bonnets! The main results I
will tell you some other time, should you ever
have an hour^s leisure.

I go North to-day, by rail to Newhall, thence
by stage to Soledad and on to Monterey, where
I will take to the woods and feel my way in free
study to San Francisco. May reach the City
about the middle of next month. . . .

Ever cordially

J. M.

To Mrs. Ezra S. Carr

1419 Taylor St,, San Francisco
September 3d, [1877]

Dear Mrs. Carr:

I have just been over at Alameda with poor
dear old Gibbons.^ You have seen him, and I
need give no particulars. ^^The only thing I^m
afraid of, John,^’ he said, looking up with his
old child face, 'Ts that I shall never be able to
climb the Oakland hills again.’ ^ But he is so
healthy and so well cared for, we will be strong
to hope that he will. He spoke for an hour with
characteristic unselfishness on the injustice
done Dr. [Albert] Kellogg in failing to recog¬
nize his long-continued devotion to science at
the botanical love feast held here the other

1 W. P. Gibbons, M.D., an able amateur botanist and
early member of the California Academy of Sciences.

70

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

night. He threatens to write up the whole dis¬
creditable affair, and is very anxious to obtain
from you a copy of that Gray letter to Kellogg
which was not delivered.

I had a glorious ramble in the Santa Cruz
woods, and have found out one very interesting
and picturesque fact concerning the growth of
this Sequoia. I mean to devote many a long
week to its study. What the upshot may be I
cannot guess, but you know I am never sent
empty away.

I made an excursion to the summit of Mt.
Hamilton in extraordinary style, accompanied
by Allen, Norton, Brawley, and all the lady
professors and their friends — a curious con¬
trast to my ordinary still hunting. Spent a week
at San Jose, enjoyed my visit with Allen very
much. Lectured to the faculty on methods
of study without imdergoing any very great
scare.

I believe I wrote you from Los Angeles about
my Pasadena week. Have sent a couple of
letters to the ‘^Bulletin” from there — not yet
pubhshed.

I have no inflexible plans as yet for the re-
maming months of the season, but Yosemite
seems to place itself as a most persistent candi¬
date for my winter. I shall soon be in flight to
the Sierras, or Oregon.

71

JOHN MUIR

I seem to give up hope of ever seeing you
calm again. Don^t grind too hard at these
Sacramento mills. Remember me to the Doc¬
tor and AUie.

Ever yours cordially

John Mum

One of the earliest and most distinguished
pioneer settlers of California was General John
Bidwell, of Chico, at whose extensive and
beautiful ranch distinguished travelers and
scientists often were hospitably entertained.
In 1877, Sir Joseph Hooker and Asa Gray were
among the guests of Rancho Chico, when they
returned from a botanical trip to Moimt
Shasta, whither they had gone imder the guid¬
ance of John Muir. This excursion, of which
more later, drew Muir also into the friendly
circle of the Bidwell family, and the following
letter was written after a prolonged visit at
Rancho Chico. ^^Lize in Jackets,’^ wrote the
late Mrs. Annie E. K. Bidwell in kindly trans¬
mitting a copy of this letter, refers to my
sister^s mule, which, when attacked by yellow
jackets whose nests we trod upon, would rise
almost perpendicularly, then plunge forward
frantically, kicking and twisting her tail with a
rapidity that elicited uproarious laughter from
Mr. Muir. Each of our riding animals had

72

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

characteristic movements on this occasion,
which Mr. Muir classified with much merri-
ment.^' Just before his departure, on October 2,
Muir expressed the wish that he might be
able to descend the Sacramento River in a skiff,
whereupon General Bidwell had his ranch car¬
penter hastily construct a kind of boat in
which Muir made the trip described in the
following letter.

To General John Bidwell, Mrs, Bidwell, and
Miss Bailie Kennedy

Sacramento, October 10th, 1877

Friends three :

The Chico flagship and I are safely arrived
in Sacramento, unwrecked, unsnagged, and the
whole winding way was one glorious strip of
enjoyment. When I bade you good-bye, on the
bank I was benumbed and bent down with
your lavish kindnesses like one of your vine-
laden willows. It is seldom that I experience
much difficulty in leaving civilization for God^s
wilds, but I was loath indeed to leave you three
that day after our long free ramble in the
moimtain woods and that five weeks^ rest in
your cool fruity home. The last I saw of you
was Miss Keimedy white among the leaves like
a fleck of mist, then sweeping around a bend
you were all gone — the old wildness came

73

JOHN MUm

back, and I began to observe, and enjoy, and
be myself again.

My first camp was made on a little oval is¬
land some ten or twelve miles down, where a
clump of arching willows formed a fine nest¬
like shelter; and where I spread my quilt on the
gravel and opened the box so daintily and
thoughtfully stored for my comfort. I began
to reflect again on your real goodness to me
from first to last, and said, ^Hfil not forget
those Chico three as long as I live.’’

I placed the two flags at the head of my bed,
one on each side, and as the campfire shone
upon them the effect was very imposing and
patriotic. The night came on full of strange
sounds from birds and insects new to me, but
the starry sky was clear and came arching over
my lowland nest seemingly as bright and famil¬
iar with its glorious constellations as when be¬
held through the thin crisp atmosphere of the
mountain-tops.

On the second day the Spoonbill sprang a
bad leak from the swelling of the bottom tim¬
bers; two of them criunpled out thus [sketch] ^
at a point where they were badly nailed, and I
had to run her ashore for repairs. I turned her

^ After Mrs. Bidwell’s death, the writer unfortunately was
unable to obtain from her relatives the loan of this letter for
the reproduction of the two included sketches.

74

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

upside down on a pebbly bar, took out one of
the timbers, whittled it carefully down to the
right dimensions, replaced it, and nailed it
tight and fast with a stone for a hammer; then
calked the new joint, shoved her back into the
current, and rechristened her ^^The Snag-
Jumper/’ She afterwards behaved splendidly
in the most trying places, and leaked only at
the rate of fifteen tincupfuls per hour.

Her performances in the way of snag¬
jumping are truly wonderful. Most snags are
covered with slimy algse and lean downstream
and the sloping bows of the Jumper enabled
her to glance gracefully up and over them,
when not too high above the water, while her
lightness prevented any strain sufficient to
crush her bottom. [Sketch of boat.] On one
occasion she took a firm slippery snag a little
obliquely and was nearly rolled upside down,
as a sod is turned by a plow. Then I charged
myself to be more careful, and while rowing
often looked well ahead for snag ripples — but
soon I came to a long glassy reach, and my
vigilance not being eternal, my thoughts
wandered upstream back to those grand spring
fountains on the head of the McCloud and Pitt.
Then I tried to picture those hidden tribu¬
taries that flow beneath the lava tablelands,
and recognized in them a capital illustration

75

JOHN MUIR

of the fact that in their farthest fountains all
rivers are lost to mortal eye, that the sources
of all are hidden as those of the Nile, and so,
also, that in this respect every river of know¬
ledge is a Nile. Thus I was philosophizing,
rowing with a steady stroke, and as the current
was rapid, the Jumper was making fine head¬
way, when with a tremendous bump she reared
like ‘^Lize in Jackets,’^ swung around stern
downstream, and remained fast on her beam
ends, erect like a coffin against a wall. She
managed, however, to get out of even this
scrape without disaster to herself or to me.

I usually sailed from sunrise. to sunset, row¬
ing one third of the time, paddling one third,
and drifting the other third in restful comfort,
landing now and then to examine a section of
the bank or some bush or tree. Under these
conditions the voyage to this port was five days
in length. On the morning of the third day I
hid my craft in the bank vines and set off cross¬
lots for the highest of the Marysville Buttes,
reached the summit, made my observations,
and got back to the river and Jumper by two
o’clock. The distance to the nearest foothill of
the group is about three miles, but to the base
of the southmost and highest butte is six miles,
and its elevation is about eighteen hundred
feet above its base, or in round numbers two

76

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

thousand feet above tidewater. The whole
group is volcanic, taking sharp basaltic forms
near the summit, and with stratified conglom¬
erates of finely polished quartz and metamor-
phic pebbles tilted against their flanks. There
is a sparse growth of live oak and laurel on the
southern slopes, the latter predominating, and
on the north quite a close tangle of dwarf oak
forming a chaparral. I noticed the white
mountain spirsca also, and madrona, with a
few willows, and three ferns toward the sum¬
mit. Pellcea andromedcefolia, Gymnogramma
triangularis, and Cheilanthes gracillima; and
many a fine flower — penstemons, gilias, and
our brave eriogonums of blessed memory. The
summit of this highest southmost butte is a
coast survey station.

The river is very crooked, becoming more
and more so in its lower course, flowing in
grand lingering dehberation, now south, now
north, east and west with fine un-American in¬
directness. The upper portion down as far as
Colusa is full of rapids, but below this point
the current is beautifully calm and lake-like,
with innumerable reaches of most surpassing
loveliness. How you would have enjoyed it!
The bank vines all the way down are of the
same species as those that festoon your beauti¬
ful Chico Creek (Vitis calif ornica), but nowhere

77

1

JOHN MUIR

' do they reach such glorious exuberance of de¬
velopment as with you.

The temperature of the water varies only
about two and a half degrees between Chico
and Sacramento, a distance by the river of
nearly two hundred miles — the upper tem¬
perature 64°, the lower 66|°. I found the tem¬
perature of the Feather [River] waters at their
confluence one degree colder than those of the
Sacramento, 65° and 66° respectively, which is
a difference in exactly the opposite direction
from what I anticipated. All the brown dis¬
coloring mud of the lower Sacramento, thus
far, is derived from the Feather, and it is curi¬
ous to observe how completely the two currents
keep themselves apart for three or four miles.
I never landed to talk to any one, or ask ques¬
tions, but was frequently cheered from the bank
and challenged by old sailors Ship ahoy,’’ etc.,
and while seated in the stern reading a maga¬
zine and drifting noiselessly with the current,
I overheard a deck hand on one of the steamers
say, ^^Now that’s what I call taking it aisy.”

I am still at a loss to know what there is in
the rig or model of the Jumper that excited
such universal curiosity. Even the birds of the
river, and the animals that came to drink,
though paying little or no heed to the passing
steamers with all their plash and outroar, at

78

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

once fixed their attention on my little flagship,
some taking flight with loud screams, others
waiting with outstretched necks until I nearly
touched them, while others circled overhead.
The domestic animals usually dashed up the
bank in extravagant haste, one crowding on
the heels of the other as if suffering extreme
terror. I placed one flag, the smaller, on the
highest pinnacle of the Butte, where I trust it
may long wave to your memory; the other I
have still. Watching the thousand land birds
— linnets,, orioles, sparrows, flickers, quails,
etc. — Nature^s darlings, taking their morning
baths, was no small part of my enjoyments.

I was greatly interested in the fine bank sec¬
tions shown to extraordinary advantage at the
present low water, because they cast so much
light upon the formation of this grand valley,
but I cannot tell my results here.

This letter is already far too long, and I will
hasten to a close. I will rest here a day or so,
and then push off again to the mouth of the
river a hundred miles or so farther, chiefly to
study the deposition of the sediment at the
head of the bay, then push for the mountains.
I would row up the San Joaquin, but two weeks
or more would be required for the trip, and I
fear snow on the mountains.

I am glad to know that you are really inter-

79

JOHN MUIR

ested in science, and I might almost venture
another lecture upon you, but in the mean time
forbear. Looking backward I see you three in
your leafy home, and while I wave my hand, I
will only wait to thank you all over and over
again for the thousand kind things you have
done and said — drives, and grapes, and rest,
that and a’ that.’’

And now, once more, farewell.

Ever cordially your friend

John Muir

During this same summer of 1877, and pre¬
vious to the experiences narrated in the pre¬
ceding letter, the great English botanist Sir
Joseph Dalton Hooker had accepted an invita¬
tion from Dr. F. V. Hayden, then in charge of
the United States Geological and Geographical
Survey of the Territories, to visit under his
conduct the Rocky Mountain region, with the
object of contributing to the records of the
Survey a report on the botany of the western
states. Professor Asa Gray was also of the
party. After gathering some special botanical
collections in Colorado, New Mexico, and
Utah, they came to California and persuaded
John Muir, on account of his familiarity with
the region, to go with them to Moimt Shasta.
One September evening, as they were en-

80

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

camped on its flanks in a forest of silver firs,
Muir built a big fire, whose glow stimulated
an abundant flow of interesting conversation.
Gray recounted reminiscences of his collect¬
ing tours in the Alleghanies; Hooker told of
his travels in the Himalayas and of his work
with Tyndall, Huxley, and Darwin. '^And of
course, notes Muir, ‘^we talked of trees, ar¬
gued the relationship of varying species, etc.;
and I remember that Sir Joseph, who in his
long active life had traveled through all the
great forests of the world, admitted, in reply to
a question of mine, that in grandeur, variety,
and beauty, no forest on the globe rivaled the
great coniferous forests of my much loved
Sierra.^’

But the most memorable incident of that
night on the flanks of Shasta grew out of the
mention of Linncea borealis — the charming
little evergreen trailer whose name perpetuates
the memory of the illustrious Linnseus. ^^Muir,
' why have you not found Linncea in Califor¬
nia?^’ said Gray suddenly during a pause in the
conversation. ^^It must be here, or hereabouts,
on the northern boundary of the Sierra. I have
heard of it, and have specimens from Washing¬
ton and Oregon all through these northern
woods, and you should have found it here.”
The camp fire sank into heaps of glowing coals,

81

J

t

^ JOHN MUIR

the conversation ceased, and all fell asleep with
Linncea uppermost in their minds.

The next morning Gray continued his work
alone, while Hooker and Muir made an excur¬
sion westward across one of the upper tribu¬
taries of the Sacramento. In crossing a small
stream, they noticed a green bank carpeted
with what Hooker at once recognized as Lfn-
ncea — the first discovery of the plant within
the boimds of California. ^^It would seem,’’
said Muir, ^Hhat Gray had felt its presence the
night before on the mountain ten miles away.
That was a great night, the like of which was
never to be enjoyed by us again, for we soon
separated and Gray died.” ^ The impression
Muir made upon Hooker is reflected in his
letters. In one of them, written twenty-five
years after the event. Hooker declares, ^^My
memory of you is very strong and durable, and
that of our days in the forests is inextinguish¬
able.”

In the following letter to his sister Muir gives
some additional details of the Shasta excursion,
and makes reference to an exceedingly strenu¬
ous exploring trip up the Middle Fork of the
Kings River, from which he had just returned.

^ Muir’s article on Linnaeus in Library of the World^s Best.
Literature, vol. 16 (1897).

82

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

To Sarah Muir Galloway

Thanksgiving evening
AT OLD 1419 Taylor St.

[November 29, 1877]

My deak Sister Sarah:

I find an unanswered letter of yours dated
September 23d, and though I have been very
hungry on the mountains a few weeks ago, and
have just been making bountiful amends at
a regular turkey thank-feast of the old New
England type, I must make an effort to answer
it, however incapacitated by stuffing,’^ for,
depend upon it, this Turkish method of thanks
does make the simplest kind of hterary effort
hard; one^s brains go heavily along the easiest
lines like a laden wagon in a bog.

But I can at least answer your questions.
The Professor Gray I was with on Shasta is the
writer of the school botanies, the most dis¬
tinguished botanist in America, and Sir Joseph
Hooker is the leading botanist of England. We
had a fine rare time together in the Shasta
forests, discussing the botanical characters of
the grandest coniferous trees in the world,
camping out, and enjoying ourselves in pure
freedom. Gray is an old friend that I led
around Yosemite years ago, and with whom I
have corresponded for a long time. Sir Joseph
I never met before. He is a fine cordial Eng-

83

JOHN MUIR

lishman, President of the Royal Scientific
Society, and has charge of the Kew Botanic
Gardens. He is a great traveler, but perfectly
free from all chilling airs of superiority. He
told me a great deal about the Himalayas, the
deodar forests there, and the gorgeous rhodo¬
dendrons that cover their flanks with lavish
bloom for miles and miles, and about the
cedars of Lebanon that he visited and the dis¬
tribution of the species in different parts of
Syria, and its relation to the deodar so widely
extended over the mountains of India. And
besides this scientific talk he told many a story
and kept the camp in fine lively humor. On
taking his leave he gave me a hearty invitation
to London, and promised to show me through
the famous government gardens at Kew, and
all round, etc., etc. When I shall be able to
avail myself of this and similar advantages I
don^t know. I have met a good many of Na¬
ture's noblemen one way and another out here,
and hope to see some of them at their homes,
but my own researches seem to hold me fast to
this comparatively sohtary life.

Next you speak of my storm night on Shasta.
Terrible as it would appear from the account
printed, the half was not told, but I will not
likely be caught in the same experience again,
though as I have said, I have just been very

84

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

hungry — one meal in four days, coupled with
the most difficult, nerve-trying cliff work.
This was on Kings River a few weeks ago.
Still, strange to say, I did not feel it much, and
there seems to be scarce any limit to my en¬
durance.

I am far from being friendless here, and on
this particular day I might have eaten a score
of prodigious thank dinners if I could have
been in as many places at the same time, but
the more I learn of the world the happier seems
to me the life you live. You speak of your
family gatherings, of a week’s visit at Mother’s
and here and there. Make the most of your
privileges to trust and love and hve in near,
un jealous, generous sympathy with one an¬
other, for I assure you these are blessings scarce
at all recognized in their real divine great¬
ness. . . .

We had a company of fourteen at dinner to¬
night, and we had what is called a grand time,
but these big eating parties never seem to me
to pay for the trouble they make, though all
seem to enjoy them immensely. A crust by a
brookside out on the mountains with God is
more to me than all, beyond comparison.
Nevertheless these poor legs in their weariness
do enjoy a soft bed at times and plenty of nour¬
ishment. I had another grand turkey feast a

85

4

JOHN MUIR

week ago. Coming home here I left my boat
at Martinez, thirty miles up the bay, and
walked to Oakland across the top of Mount
Diablo, and on the way called at my friends,
the Strentzels, who have eighty acres of choice
orchards and vineyards, where I rested two
days, my first rest in six weeks. They pitied
my weary looks, and made me eat and sleep,
stufiing me with turkey, chicken, beef, fruits,
and jellies in the most extravagant manner
imaginable, and begged me to stay a month.
Last eve dined at a French friend’s in the city,
and you would have been surprised to see so
temperate a Scotchman doing such justice to
French dishes. The fact is I’ve been hungry
ever since starving in the mountain canons.

This evening the guests would ask me how
I felt while starving? Why I did not die hke
other people? How many bears I had seen, and
deer, etc.? How deep the snow is now and
where the snow line is located, etc.? Then up¬
stairs we chat and sing and play piano, etc.,
and then I slip off from the company and write
this. Now it [is] near midnight, and I must slip
from thee also, wishing you and David and all
your dear family good-night. With love,

[John Muir]

86

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

To General John Bidwell

1419 Taylor St., San Francisco
December 3, 1877

My dear General:

I arrived in my old winter quarters here a
week ago, my season’s field work done, and I
was just sitting down to write to Mrs. Bidwell
when your letter of November 29th came in.
The tardiness of my Kings River postal is
easily explained. I committed it to the care of
a mountaineer who was about to descend to the
lowlands, and he probably carried it for a
month or so in his breeches’ pocket in accord¬
ance with the well-known business habits of
that class of men. And now since you are so
kindly interested in my welfare I must give you
here a sketch of my explorations since I wrote
you from Sacramento.

I left Snag-Jumper at Sacramento in charge
of a man whose name I have forgotten. He has
boats of his own, and I tied Snag to one of his
stakes in a snug out-of-the-way nook above the
railroad bridge. I met this pilot a mile up the
river on his way home from hunting. He kindly
led me into port, and then conducted me in the
dark up the Barbary Coast into the town; and
on taking leave he volunteered the information
that he was always kindly disposed towards
strangers, but that most people met under such

87

JOHN MUIR

circumstances would have robbed and made
away with me, etc. I think, therefore, that
leaving Snag in his care will form an interesting
experiment on human nature.

I fully intended to sail on down into the bay
and up the San Joaquin as far as Millerton, but
when I came to examine a map of the river
deltas and found that the distance was up¬
wards of three hundred miles, and learned also
that the upper San Joaquin was not navigable
this dry year even for my craft, and when I
also took into consideration the approach of
winter and danger of snowstorms on the Kings
River summits, I concluded to urge my way
into the mountains at once, and leave the San
Joaquin studies until my return.

Accordingly I took the steamer to San
Francisco, where I remained one day, leaving
extra baggage, and getting some changes of
clothing. Then went direct by rail to Visalia,
thence pushed up the mountains to Hyde^s
Mill on the Kaweah, where I obtained some
flour, which, together with the tea Mrs. Bid-
well supphed me with, and that piece of dried
beef, and a little sugar, constituted my stock
of provisions. From here I crossed the divide,
going northward through fine Sequoia woods
to Converse’s on Kings River. Here I spent
two days making some studies on the Big Trees,

88

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

chiefly with reference to their age. Then I
turned eastward and pushed off into the glo¬
rious wilderness, following the general direction
of the South Fork a few miles back from the
brink until I had crossed three tributary canons
from 1500 to 2000 feet deep. In the eastmost
and middle one of the three I was delighted to
discover some four or five square miles of Se¬
quoia, where I had long guessed the existence
of these grand old tree kings.

After this capital discovery I made my way
to the bottom of the main South Fork Canon
down a rugged side gorge, having a descent of
more than four thousand feet. This was at a
point about two miles above the confluence of
Boulder Creek. From here I pushed slowly on
up the bottom of the canon, through brush and
avalanche boulders, past many a charming fall
and garden sacred to nature, and at length
reached the grand yosemite at the head, where
I stopped two days to make some measure¬
ments of the cliffs and cascades. This done, I
crossed over the divide to the Middle Fork by a
pass 12,200 feet high, and struck the head of a
small tributary that conducted me to the head
of the main Middle Fork Canon, which I
followed down through its entire length, though
it has hitherto been regarded as absolutely in¬
accessible in its lower reaches. This accom-

89

JOHN MUIR

plished, and all my necessary sketches and
measurements made, I climbed the canon wall
below the confluence of the Middle and South
Forks and came out at Converse^s again; then
back to Hyde^s Mill, Visalia, and thence to
Merced City by rail, thence by stage to Snell-
ing, and thence to Hopeton afoot.

Here I built a little unpretentious successor
to Snag out of some gnarled, sun-twisted fenc¬
ing, launched it in the Merced opposite the
village, and rowed down into the San Joaquin
— thence down the San Joaquin past Stockton
and through the tule region into the bay near
Martinez. There I abandoned my boat and
set off cross lots for Mount Diablo, spent a
night on the summit, and walked the next day
into Oakland. And here my fine summer^s
wanderings came to an. end. And now I find
that this mere skeleton finger board indication
of my excursion has filled at least the space of a
long letter, while I have told you nothing of
my gains. If you were nearer I would take a
day or two and come and report, and talk in-
veterately in and out of season until you would
be glad to have me once more in the canons and
silence. But Chico is far, and I can only finish
with a catalogue of my new riches, setting them
down one after the other like words in a spelling
book.

90

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

1. Four or five square miles of Sequoias.

2. The ages of twenty-six ^specimen Se¬
quoias.

3. A fine fact about bears.

4. A sure measurement of the deepest of all
the ancient glaciers yet traced in the
Sierra.

5. Two waterfalls of the first order, and cas¬
cades innumerable.

6. A new Yosemite valley!!!

7. Grand facts concerning the formation of
the central plain of California.

8. A picturesque cluster of facts concerning
the river birds and animals.

9. A glorious series of new landscapes, with
mountain furniture and garnitme of the
most ravishing grandeur and beauty.

Here, Mrs. Bidwell, is a rose leaf from a wild
briar on Mount Diablo whose leaves are more
flowery than its petals. ' IsnT it beautiful?
That new Yosemite Valley is located in the
heart of the Middle Fork Canon, the most re¬
mote, and inaccessible, and one of the very
grandest of all the mountain temples of the
range. It is still sacred to Nature, its gardens
untrodden, and every nook and rejoicing cata¬
ract wears the bloom and glad sun-beauty of
primeval wildness — ferns and lihes and grasses

JOHN MUIR

over one^s head. I saw a flock of five deer in
one of its open meadows, and a grizzly bear
quietly munching acorns under a tree within a
few steps.

The cold was keen and searching the night
I spent on the summit by the edge of a glacier
lake twenty-two degrees below the freezing
point, and a storm wind blowing in fine hearty
surges among the shattered cliffs overhead,
and, to crown all, snow flowers began to fly a
few minutes after midnight, causing me to fold
that quilt of yours and fly to avoid a serious
snowbound. By daylight I was down in the
main Middle Fork in a milder climate and safer
position at an elevation of only seventy-five
himdred feet. All the summit peaks were
quickly clad in close unbroken white.

I was terribly hungry ere I got out of this
wild canon — had less than sufficient for one
meal in the last four days, and this, coupled
with very hard nerve-trying cliff work was
sufficiently exhausting for any mountaineer.
Yet strange to say, I did not suffer much.
Crystal water, and air, and honey sucked from
the scarlet flowers of Zauschneria, about one
tenth as much as would suffice for a humming
bird, was my last breakfast — a very temperate
meal, was it not? — wholly ungross and very
nearly spiritual. The last effort before reaching

92

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

food was a climb up out of the main canon of
five thousand feet. Still I made it in fair time
— only a httle faint, no giddiness, want of
spirit, or incapacity to observe and enjoy, or
any nonsense of this kind. How I should have
liked to have then tumbled into your care for
a day or two !

My sail down the Merced and San Joaquin
was about two hundred and fifty miles in length
and took two weeks, a far more difficult and
less interesting [trip], as far as scenery is con¬
cerned, than my memorable first voyage down
the Sacramento. Sandbars and gravelly riffles,
as well as snags gave me much trouble, and in
the Tule wilderness I had to tether my tiny
craft to a bunch of rushes and sleep cold in her
bottom with the seat for a pillow. I have
gotten past most of the weariness but am
himgry yet notwithstanding friends have been
stuffing me here ever since. I may go hungry
through life and into the very grave and beyond
unless you effect a cure, and I^m sure I should
like to try Rancho Chico — would have tried
it ere this were you not so far off.

I slept in your quilt all through the excur¬
sion, and brought it here tolerably clean and
whole. The flag I left tied to the bush-top in the
bottom of the third F Canon. I have not yet
written to Gray, have you? Remember me to

93

JOHN MUIR

your sister, I mean to write to her soon. I must
close. With lively remembrances of your rare
kindness, I am

Ever very cordially yours

John Muir

To Dr, and Mrs, John Strentzel, and
Miss Strentzel

1419 Taylor St., San Francisco
December 5th, 1877

Friends three :

I made a capital little excursion over your
Mount Diablo and arrived in good order in San
Francisco after that fine rest in your wee white
house.

I sauntered on leisurely after bidding you
good-bye, enjoying the landscape as it was
gradually unrolled in the evening light. One
charming bit of picture after another came into
view at every turn of the road, and while the
sunset fires were burning brightest I had at¬
tained an elevation sufficient for a grand com¬
prehensive feast.

I reached the summit a little after dark and
selected a sheltered nook in the chaparral to
rest for the night and await the coming of the
sun. The wind blew a gale, but I did not suffer
much from the cold. The night was keen and
crisp and the stars shone out with better bril-

94

THE WORLD NEEDS THE WOODS

liancy than one could hope for in these lowland
atmospheres.

The sunrise was truly glorious. After linger¬
ing an hour or so, observing and feasting and
making a few notes, I went down to that half¬
way hotel for breakfast. I was the only guest,
while the family numbered four, well attired
and intellectual looking persons, who for a time
.kept up a solemn, quakerish silence which I
tried in vain to break up. But at length all
four began a hearty, spontaneous discussion
upon the art of cat killing, solemnly and de¬
cently relating in turn all their experience in
this delightful business in bygone time, em¬
bracing everything with grave fervor in the
whole scale of cat, all the way up from sackfuls
of purblind kittens to tigerish Toms. Then I
knew that such knowledge was attainable only
by intellectual New Englanders.

My walk down the mountain-side across the
valleys and through the Oakland hills was very
dehghtful, and I feasted on many a bit of pure
picture in purple and gold, Natme^s best, and
beheld the most ravishingly beautiful sunset
on the Bay I ever yet enjoyed in the low¬
lands.

I shall not soon forget the rest I enjoyed in
your pure white bed, or the feast on your fruity
table. Seldom have I been so deeply weary,

95

JOHN MUIR

and as for hunger, IVe been hungry still in
spite of it all, and for aught I see in the signs of
the stomach may go hungry on through life and
into the grave and beyond

Heaven forbid a dry year! May wheat
grow!

With lively remembrances of your rare
kindness, I am.

Very cordially your friend

John Muir

The winter and the spring months passed
swiftly in the effort to correlate and put into
literary form his study of the forests. There
were additional ^Hree days,’^ too, and other
visits with the congenial three on the Strentzel
ranch. But when the Swetts, with whom he
made his home, departed for the summer, tak¬
ing their little daughter with them, he fur¬
loughed himself to the woods again without
ceremony. Helen Swett,’' he wrote to the
Strentzels on May 5th, ‘Teft this morning, and
the house is in every way most dolefully dull,
and I won^t stay in it. Will go into the woods,
perhaps about Mendocino — will see more
trees.

CHAPTER XIII

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME
1878-1880

During the summer of 1878 the United States
Coast and Geodetic Survey made a reconnais¬
sance along the 39th parallel of latitude in order
to effect the primary triangulation of Nevada
and Utah. The survey party was in charge of
Assistant August F. Rodgers, and was making
preparations to set out from Sacramento in
June, when Muir returned from a trip to the
headwaters of the north and middle forks of
the American River. He decided immediately
to accept an invitation to join the party, al¬
though some of his friends, notably the Strent-
zels, sought to dissuade him on account of the
Indian disturbances which had made Nevada
imsafe territory for a number of years. Idaho
was then actually in the throes of an Indian
war that entailed the destruction and abandon¬
ment of the Malheur Reservation across the
boundary in Oregon.

But the perils of the situation were in Muir’s
view outweighed by the exceptional oppor¬
tunity to explore numerous detached mountain
ranges and valleys of Nevada about which little

97

JOHN MUIR

was known at the time. “If an explorer of
God’s fine wildernesses should wait until every
danger be removed/’ he wrote to Mrs. Strent-
zel, “then he would wait until the sun set. The
war country lies to the north of our line of
work, some two or three hundred miles. Some
of the Pah Utes have gone north to join the
Bannocks, and those left behind are not to be
trusted, but we shall be well armed, and they
will not dare to attack a party like ours unless
they mean to declare war, however gladly they
might seize the opportunity of killing a lonely
and unknown explorer. In any case we will
never be more than two hundred miles from the
railroad.”

Unfortunately Muir, becoming absorbed the
following year in the wonders of Alaska, never
found time to reduce his Nevada explorations
to writing in the form of well-considered arti¬
cles. He did, however, write for the “San
Francisco Evening Bulletin” a number of
sketches during the progress of the expedition,
and these, published in “Steep Trails,” can
now be supplemented with the following letters
to the Strentzels — the only extant series
written during that expedition.

Since Muir ultimately married into the
Strentzel family, its antecedents are of interest
to the reader and may be sketched briefly in

98

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

this connection. John Strentzel, born in Lub¬
lin, Poland, was a participant in the unsuccess¬
ful Pohsh revolution of 1830. To escape the
bitter fate of being drafted into the victorious
Russian army he fled to Upper Hungary where
he obtained a practical knowledge of viticul¬
ture, and later was trained as a physician at
the University of Buda-Pesth. Coming to the
United States in 1840, he joined at Louisville,
Kentucky, a party of pioneers known as
Peters^ Colonization Company, and went with
them to the Trinity River in Texas, where he
built a cabin on the present site of the city of
Dallas, then a wild Comanche country. When
the colony failed and dispersed he removed to
Lamar County in the same state, was married
at Honey grove to Louisiana Erwin, a native of
Tennessee, and in 1849, with his wife and baby
daughter, came across the plains from Texas to
California as medical adviser to the Clarkes-
ville ^Hrain’^ of pioneer immigrants. Not long
afterwards he settled in the Alhambra ^ Valley

^ According to the journal of Dr. Strentzel, this was not
the original name of the valley. A company of Spanish
soldiers, sent to chastise some Indians, was unable to obtain
provisions there, and so named it, “Canada de la Hambre,” or
Valley of Hunger. “ Mrs. Strentzel, on arriving here,” writes
her husband, “was displeased with the name, and, remember¬
ing Irving’s glowing description of the Moorish paradise,
decided to re-christen our home Alhambra.” Ever since then
the valley has borne this modification of the original name.

JOHN MUIR

near Martinez, and became one of the earliest
and most successful horticulturists of Cali¬
fornia.

Miss Louie Wanda Strentzel, now arrived
at mature womanhood, was not only the pride
of the family, but was known widely for the
grace with which she dispensed the generous
hospitality of the Strentzel household. She had
received her education in the Atkins Seminary
for Young Ladies at Benicia and, according to
her father, was “passionately fond of flowers
and music.” Among her admiring friends was
Mrs. Carr, who at various times had vainly
tried to bring about a meeting between Miss
Strentzel and Mr. Muir. “You see how I am
snubbed in trying to get John Muir to ac¬
company me to your house this week,” wrote
Mrs. Carr in April, 1875. Moimt Shasta was
in opposition at the time, and easily won the
choice.

But so many roads and interests met at the
Strentzel ranch, so many friends had the two
in common, that sooner or later an acquaint¬
anceship was bound to result. In 1878 Muir
began to be a frequent and fondly expected
guest in the Strentzel household, and he was
to discover ere long that the most beautiful ad¬
ventures are not those one deliberately goes
to seek.

100

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

Meantime, despite the dissuasion of his so¬
licitous friends, he was off to the wildernesses
of Nevada. Since the Survey had adopted for
triangulation purposes a pentagon whose an¬
gles met at Genoa Peak, the party first made
its way to the town of the same name in its
vicinity, where the first of the following letters
was written.

To Dr, and Mrs. John Strentzel

Genoa, Nevada, July 6, 1878

Deae Stkentzels :

We rode our horses from Sacramento to this
little village via Placerville and Lake Tahoe.
The plains and foothills were terribly hot, the
upper Sierra along the south fork of the Amer¬
ican River cool and picturesque, and the Lake
region almost cold. Spent three delightful days
at the Lake — steamed around it, and visited
Cascade Lake a mile beyond the western shore
of Tahoe.

We are now making up our train ready to
push off into the Great Basin. Am well
mounted, and with the fine brave old garden
desert before me, fear no ill. We will probably
reach Austin, Nevada, in about a month.
Write to me there, care Captain A. E. Rodgers.

Your fruity hollow wears a most beautiful
and benignant aspect from this alkaline stand-

101

JOHN MUIR

point, and so does the memory of your ex¬
travagant kindness.

Farewell

John Muir

To Dr, and Mrs, Strentzel

West Walker River
Near Wellington’s Station
July 11th, 1878

Dear Strentzels:

We are now fairly free in the sunny basin
of the grand old sea that stretched from the
Wasatch to the Sierra. There is something
perfectly enchanting to me in this young desert
with its stranded island ranges. How bravely
they rejoice in the flooding sunshine and en¬
dure the heat and drought.

All goes well in camp. All the Indians we
meet are harmless as sagebushes, though per¬
haps about as bitter at heart. The river here
goes brawling out into the plain after breaking
through a range of basaltic lava.

In three days we shall be on top of Mount
Grant, the highest peak of the Wassuck Range,
to the west of Walker Lake.

I send you some Nevada prunes, or peaches
rather. They are very handsome and have a
flne wild flavor. The bushes are from three to
six feet high, growing among the sage. It is a

102

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

true Prunus, Whether cultivation could ever
make it soft enough and big enough for civilized
teeth I dinna ken, but guess so. Plant it and
see. It will not be ashamed of any pampered
“free^^ or cling, or even your oranges.

The wild brier roses are in full bloom, sweeter
and bonnier far than Louie’s best, bonnie
though they be.

I can see no post-oflBce ahead nearer than
Austin, Nevada, which we may reach in three
weeks. The packs are afloat.

Good-morning. •

[John Muir]

To Dr, John Strentzel

Austin, Nevada
August 5th, 1878

Dear Doctor:

Your kind note of the 24th was received the
other day and your discussion of fruits and
the fineness in general of civilized things takes
me at some little disadvantage.

From the “Switch” we rode to the old Fort
Churchill on the Carson and at the “Upper”
lower end of Mason Valley were delighted to
find the ancient outlet of Walker Lake down
through a very picturesque canon to its con¬
fluence with the Carson. It appears therefore
that not only the Humboldt and Carson, but

103

4

JOHN MUIR

the Walker River also poured its waters into
the Great Sink towards the end of the glacial
period. From Fort Churchill we pushed east¬
ward between Carson Lake and the Sink.
Boo ! how hot it was riding in the solemn, silent
glare, shadeless, waterless. Here is what the
early emigrants called the forty-mile desert,
well marked with bones and broken wagons.
Strange how the very sunshine may become
dreary. How strange a spell this region casts
over poor mortals accustomed to shade and
coolness and green fertility. Yet there is no
real cause, that I could see, for reasonable be¬
ings losing their wits and becoming frightened.
There are the lovely tender abronias blooming
in the fervid sand and sun, and a species of sun¬
flower, and a curious leguminous bush crowded
with purple blossoms, and a green saltwort,
and four or five species of artemisia, really
beautiful, and three or four handsome grasses.

Lizards reveled in the grateful heat and a
brave little tamias that carries his tail forward
over his back, and here and there a hare. Im¬
mense areas, however, are smooth and hard
and plantless, reflecting light like water. How
eloquently they tell of the period, just gone by,
when this region was as remarkable for its lav¬
ish abundance of lake water as now for its
aridity. The same grand geological story is in-

104

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

scribed on the mountain flanks, old beach lines
that seem to have been drawn with a ruler,
registering the successive levels at which the
grand lake stood, corresponding most signifi¬
cantly with the fluctuations of the glaciers as
marked by the terraced lateral moraines and
successively higher terminal moraines.

After crossing the Sink we ascended the
mountain range that bounds it on the East,
eight thousand to ten thousand feet high.
How treeless and barren it seemed. Yet how
full of small charming gardens, with mints,
primroses, brier-roses, penstemons, spiraeas,
etc., watered by trickling streams too small to
sing audibly. How glorious a view of the Sink
from the mountain-top. The colors are in¬
effably lovely, as if here Nature were doing her
very best painting.

But a letter tells little. We next ascended
the Augusta Range, crossed the Desetoya and
Shoshone ranges, then crossed Reese River
valley and ascended the Toyabe Range, eleven
thousand feet high. Lovely gardens in all. Dis¬
covered here the true Pinus flexilis at ten
thousand feet. It enters the Sierra in one or
two places on the south extremity of the
Sierra, east flank. Saw only one rattlesnake.
No hostile Indians. Had a visit at my tent
yesterday from Captain Bob, one of the Pah

105

JOHN MUIR

Ute plenipotentiaries who lately visited Mc¬
Dowell at San Francisco. Next address for two
weeks from this date, Eureka, Nevada.

I’m sure I showed my appreciation of good
things. That’s a fine suggestion about the
grapes. Try me. Doctor, on tame, tame
Tokays.

Cordially yours

John Muir

To Dr. and Mrs. John Strentzel

In camp near Belmont, Nevada
August 2Sthy 1878

Dear Strentzels:

I sent you a note from Austin. Thence we
traveled southward down the Big Smoky
Valley, crossing and recrossing it between the
Toyabe and Toquima Ranges, the dominating
summits of which we ascended. Thence still
southward towards Death Valley to Lone
Mountain; thence northeastward to this little
mining town.

From the summit of a huge volcanic table
mountain of the Toquima Range I observed
a truly glorious spectacle — a dozen ^^cloud¬
bursts” falhng at once while we were cordially
pelted with hail. The falling water cloud-
drapery, thunder tones, lightning, and tranquil
blue sky windows between made one of the

106

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

most impressive pictures I ever beheld. One
of these cloud-bursts fell upon Austin, another
upon Eureka. But still more glorious to me
was the big significant fact I found here, fresh,
telling glacial phenomena — a whole series.
Moraines, roches moutonnees^ glacial sculptures,
and even feeble specimens of glacier meadows
and glacier lakes. I also observed less manifest
glaciation on several other ranges. I have long
guessed that this Great Basin was loaded with
ice during the last cold period; but the rocks
are as unresisting and the water spouts to
which all the ranges have been exposed have
not simply obscured the glacial scriptures
here, but nearly buried and obliterated them,
so that only the skilled observer would detect
a single word, and he would probably be called
a glaciated monomaniac. Now it is clear that
this fiery inland region was icy prior to the
lake period.

I have also been so fortunate as to settle that
pine species we discussed, and found the nest
and young of the Alpine sparrow. What do you
think of all this — A’ that and sJ that ^7 The
sun heat has been intense. Wliat a triangle of
noses! — Captain Rodgers’, Limbeck’s, and
mine — mine sore. Limbeck’s sorer. Captain’s
sorest — scaled and dry as the backs of lizards,
and divided into sections all over the surface

107

v'*'-

JOHN MUIR

and turned up on the edges like the surface
layers of the desiccated sections of adobe
flats.

On Lone Mountain we were thirsty. How we
thought of the cool singing streams of the
Sierra while our blood fevered and boiled and
throbbed! Three of us ascended the moimtain
against my counsel and remonstrances while
forty miles from any known water. Two of the
three nearly lost their lives. I suffered least,
though I suffered as never before, and was the
only one strong enough to ascend a sandy canon
to find and fetch the animals after descend¬
ing the mountain. Then I had to find my two
companions. One I found death-like, lying in
the hot sand, scarcely conscious and unable to
speak above a frightful whisper. I managed,
however, to get him on his horse. The other
I found in a kind of delirious stupor, voiceless,
in the sagebrush. It was a fearfully exciting
search, and I forgot my own exhaustion in it,
though I never for a moment lost my will and
wits, or doubted our ability to endure and es¬
cape. We reached water at daybreak of the
second day — two days and nights in this fire
without water ! A lesson has been learned that
will last, and we will not suffer so again. Of
course we could not eat or sleep all this time,
for we could not swallow food and the fever

108

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

prevented sleep. To-morrow we set out for the
White Pine region.

Cordially yours

•» J. Muir

To Mrs, John Strentzel

Belmont, Nevada
August Slst, 187S

Dear Mrs. Strentzel:

I wrote you a note the other day before re¬
ceiving your letter of the 14th which reached
me this morning. The men are packing up and
I have only a moment. We have been engaged
so long southward that we may not go to
Eureka. If not we will make direct to Hamil¬
ton and the box the Doctor so kindly sent I
will have forwarded.

The fiery sun is pouring his first beams across
the gray Belmont hills, but so long as there is
anything like a fair supply of any kind of water
to keep my blood thin and flowing, it affects
me but httle. We are all well again, or nearly
so — I quite. Our leader still shows traces of
fever. The difference between wet and dry
bulb thermometer here is often 40^ or more,
causing excessive waste from lungs and skin,
and, unless water be constantly supplied, one^s
blood seems to thicken to such an extent that
if Shylock should ask, ^^If you prick him, will

109

JOHN MUIR

he bleed? I should answer, dinna ken.’’
Heavens! if the juicy grapes had come manna¬
like from the sky that last thirst-night!

Farewell. We go.

Cordially and thankfully yours

John Muir

[The following note was written, probably
the evening of the same day, on the reverse of
the letter-sheet.]

The very finest, softest, most ethereal purple
hue tinges, permeates, covers, glorifies the
mountains and the level. How lovely then,
how suggestive of the best heaven, how unlike
a desert now! While the httle garden, the
hurrying moths, the opening flowers, and the
cool evening wind that now begins to flow and
lave down the gray slopes above heighten the
peacefulness and loveliness of the scene.

To Dr. and Mrs. John Strentzel

Hamilton, Nevada
September 11, 1878

Dear Strentzels:

All goes well in camp save that box of grapes
you so kindly sent. I telegraphed for it, on ar¬
riving at this place, to be sent by Wells Fargo,
but it has not come, and we leave here to¬
morrow. We had hoped to have been in Eureka

110

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

■ by the middle of last month, but the unknown
factors so abundant in our work have pushed
us so far southward we will not now be likely
to go there at all. Nevertheless I have enjoyed
your kindness even in this last grape expres¬
sion of it, but you must not try to send any
more, because we will not again be within
grape range of railroads until on our way home
in October or November. Then, should there
be any left, I will manifest for my own good
and the edification of civilization a fruit ca¬
pacity and fervor to be foimd only in savage
camps.

Since our Lone Mountain experience we have
not been thirsty. Our course hence is first
south for eighty or ninety miles along the
western flank of the White Pine Range, then
east to the Snake Range near the boundary of
the State, etc.

Our address will be Hamilton, Nevada, until
the end of this month. Our movements being
so uncertain, we prefer to have our mail for¬
warded to points where we chance to find our¬
selves. In southern Utah the greater portion
of our course will be across deserts.

The roses are past bloom, but I’ll send seeds
from the first garden I find. Yesterday found
on Mount Hamilton the Pinus aristata growing
on limestone and presenting the most extra va¬
in

JOHN MUIR

gant picturesqueness I have ever met in any
climate or species. Glacial traces, too, of great
interest. This is the famous White Pine mining
region, now nearly dead. Twenty-eight thou¬
sand mining claims were located in the district,
which is six miles by twelve. Now only fifteen
are worked, and of these only one, the Eber-
hardt, gives much hope or money. Both
Hamilton and Treasure City are silent now,
but Nature goes on gloriously.

Cordially yours

John Muir

To Dr. John Strentzel

Ward, Nevada, Saturday morning
September 28th, 1878

Dear Doctor:

Your kind letter of the 8th ultimo reached
me yesterday, having been forwarded from
Hamilton. This is a little three-year-old mining
town where we are making a few days’ halt to
transact some business and rest the weary
animals. We arrived late, when it was too dark
to set the tents, and we recklessly camped in a
corral on a breezy hilltop. I have a great horror
of sleeping upon any trodden ground near
human settlements, not to say ammoniacal
pens, but the Captain had his blankets spread
alongside the wagon, and I dared the worst and

112

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

lay down beside him. A wild equinoctial gale
roared and tumbled down the moimtain-side
all through the night, sifting the dry fragrant
snuff about our eyes and ears, notwithstanding
all our care in tucking and rolling our ample
blankets. The situation was not exactly dis¬
tressing, but most absurdly and d - dly

ludicrous. Our camp traps, basins, bowls, bags,
went speeding wildly past in screeching rum¬
bling discord with the earnest wind-tones. A
heavy mill-frame was blown down, but we
suffered no great damage, most of our runaway
gear having been foimd in fence corners. But
how terribly we stood in need of deodorizers!
— not dealkalizers, as you suggest.

Next morning we rented a couple of rooms
in town where we now are and washed, rubbed,
dusted, and combed ourselves back again into
countenance. Half an hour ago, after reading
your letter a second time, I tumbled out my
pine tails, tassels, and burrs, and was down on
my knees on the floor making a selection for
you according to your wishes and was casting
about as to the chances of finding a suitable
box, when the Captain, returning from the
post-office, handed me your richly laden grape
box, and now the grapes are out and the burrs
are in. Now this was a coincidence worth
noting, was it not? — better than most people^s

113

JOHN MUIR

special providences. The fruit was in perfect
condition, every individual spheroid of them
all fresh and bright and as tightly bent as
drums with their stored-up sun-juices. The big
bunch is hung up for the benefit of eyes, most
of the others have already vanished, causing,
as they fled, a series of the finest sensuous
nerve-waves imaginable.

The weather is now much cooler — the
nights almost bracingly cold — and all goes
well, not a thirst trace left. We were weather¬
bound a week in a canon of the Golden Gate
Range, not by storms, but by soft, balmy, hazy
Indian summer, in which the mountain aspens
ripened to flaming yellow, while the sky was
too opaque for observations upon the distant
peaks.

Since leaving Hamilton, have obtained more
glacial facts of great interest, very telling in the
history of the Great Basin. Also many charm-
mg additions to the thousand, thousand pic¬
tures of Nature^s mountain beauty. I imder-
stand perfectly your criticism on the blind
pursuit of every scientific pebble, wasting a life
in microscopic examinations of every grain of
wheat in a field, but I am not so doing. The
history of this vast wonderland is scarce at all
known, and no amount of study in other fields
will develop it to the light. As to that special

114

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

thirst affair, I was in no way responsible. I was
fully awake to the danger, but I was not in a
position to prevent it.

Our work goes on hopefully towards a satis¬
factory termination. Will soon be in Utah.
All the mountains yet to be climbed have been
seen from other summits save two on the
Wasatch, viz. Mount Nebo and a peak back
of Beaver. Our next object will be Wheeler ^s
Peak, forty miles east of here.

The fir I send you is remarkably like the
Sierra grandis, but much smaller, seldom at¬
taining a greater height than fifty feet. In
going east from the Sierra it was first met on
the Hot Creek Range, and afterwards on all
the higher ranges thus far. It also occurs on
the Wasatch and Oquirrh Mountains. Of the
two pines, that with the larger cones is called
White Pine^’ by the settlers. It was first met
on Cory^s Peak west of Walker Lake, and after¬
wards on all the mountains thus far that
reached an elevation of ten thousand feet or
more. This, I have no doubt, is the species so
rare on the Sierra, and which I found on the
eastern slope opposite the head of Owens Val¬
ley. Two years ago I saw it on the Wasatch
above Salt Lake. I mean to send specimens to
Gray and Hooker, as they doubtless observed
it on the Rocky Mountains. The other species

115

JOHN MUIR

is the aristata of the southern portion of the
Sierra above the Kern and Kings Rivers. Is
but httle known, though exceedingly interest¬
ing. First met on the Hot Creek Range, and
more abundantly on the White Pine Mountains
— called Fox-Tail Pine by the miners, on ac¬
count of its long bushy tassels. It is by far the
most picturesque of all pines, and those of
these basin ranges far surpass those of the
Sierra in extravagant and unusual beauty of
the picturesque kind. These three species and
the Fremont or nut pine and junipers are the
only coniferous trees I have thus far met in the
State. Possibly the Yellow Pine {'ponder osa)
may be found on the Snake Range. I observed
it last year on the Wasatch, together with one
Abies. Of course that small portion of Nevada
which extends into the Sierra about Lake
Tahoe is not considered in this connection, for
it is naturally a portion of California.

Cordially yours

John Mxjir

Upon his return from the mountains of Ne¬
vada Muir found that sickness had invaded the
family of John Swett, with whom he had made
his home for the last three years, and it became
necessary for him to find new lodgings. In a
letter addressed to Mrs. John Bidwell, under

116

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

date of February 17, 1879, he writes: have
settled for the winter at 920 Valencia Street
[San Francisco], with my friend Mr. [Isaac]
Upham, of Payot, Upham and Company,
Booksellers; am comfortable, but not very
fruitful thus far — reading more than writing.’^
This remained his temporary abode until his
marriage and removal to Martinez the follow¬
ing year. The famous wooden clock shared
also this last removal and continued its service
as a faithful timepiece for many years to come.

To Dr. and Mrs. John Strentzel

920 Valencia St., San Francisco
January 28th, 1879

Dear Friends :

The vast soul-stirring work of flitting is at
length done and well done. Myself, wooden
clock, and notebooks are once more planted
for the winter out here on the outermost ragged
edge of this howling metropolis of dwelling
boxes.

And now, well what now? Nothing but
work, book-making, brick-making, the trans¬
formation of raw bush sugar and mountain
meal into magazine cookies and snaps. And
though the spectacled critics who ken every¬
thing in wise ignorance say '^well done, sir,
well done,’’ I always feel that there is some-

117

JOHN MUIR

thing not quite honorable in thus dealing with
God’s wild gold — the sugar and meal, I mean.

Yesterday I began to try to cook a mess of
bees, but have not yet succeeded in making
the ink run sweet. The blessed brownies
winna buzz in this temperature, and what can
a body do about it? Maybe ignorance is the
deil that is spoiling the — the — the broth —
the nectar, and perhaps I ought to go out and
gather some more Melissa and thyme and
white sage for the pot.

The streets here are barren and beeless and
ineffably muddy and mean-looking. How
people can keep hold of the conceptions of New
Jerusalem and immortality of souls with so
much mud and gutter, is to me admirably
strange. A Eucalyptus bush on every other
corner, standing tied to a painted stick, and
a geranium sprout in a pot on every tenth
window sill may help heavenward a little, but
how little amid so muckle down-dragging mud!

This much for despondency; per contra, the
grass and grain is growing, and man will be
fed, and the nations will be glad, etc., and the
sun rises every day.

Helen [Swett] is well out of danger, and is
very nearly her own sweet amiable engaging
little self again, and I can see her at least once
a week.

118

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

I’m living with Mr. Upham and am com¬
fortable as possible. Summer will soon be again.

When you come to the city visit me, and see
how bravely I endure; so touching a lesson of
resignation to metropolitan evils and goods
should not be lightly missed.

Hoping all goes well with you, I am,
Cordially your friend

John Muir

Frequently, in letters to friends, Muir com¬
plains that in town he is unable to compel
the right mood for the production of readable
articles. ^‘As yet I have accomphshed very
nearly nothing,” he writes some weeks after
the above letter; he had only ^‘reviewed a little
book, and written a first sketch of our bee
pastures! . . . How astoundingly empty and
dry — box-like ! — is our brain in a house built
on one of those precious 4ots’ one hears so
much about!”

The fact is that Muir’s personal letters, like
his conversation, flowed smoothly and easily;
but when he sat down to write an article, his
critical faculty was called into play, and his
thoughts, to employ his own simile, began to
labor like a laden wagon in a bog. There was
a consequent loss of that spontaneity which
made him such a fascinating talker. “John

119

JOHN MUIR

polishes his articles until an ordinary man slips
on them/^ remarked his friend and neighbor
John Swett when he wished to underline his
own sense of the difference between Muir^s
spoken and written words. Such was the bril¬
liance of his conversation during the decades
of his greatest power that the fame of it still
lingers as a literary tradition in California.
Organizations and individuals vied with each
other to secure his attendance at public and
private gatherings, convinced that the an¬
nouncement John Muir will be there would
assure the success of any meeting. It was with
this thought in mind that the manager of a
great Sunday-School convention, scheduled to
meet in Yosemite in June, 1879, offered him a
hundred dollars just to come and talk.

It seems a pity that in his earlier years
no one thought of having his vivid recitals of
observations and adventures recorded by a
stenographer and then placed before him for
revision. By direction of the late E. H. Harri-
man, Muir^s boyhood memoirs were taken
down from his conversation at Pelican Lodge
to be subsequently revised for publication.
Though he often entirely rewrote the conver¬
sational first draft, the possession of the raw
material in typed form acted as a stimulus to
literary production, and enabled him to bring

120

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

to completion what otherwise might have been
lost to the world.

But, however much he chafed and groaned
under the necessity of meeting his contracts
for articles, the remarkable series which he
wrote during the late seventies for “ Harper ^s
Magazine and Scribner’s Monthly” are
conclusive demonstrations of his power. Among
them was ^^The Humming-Bird of the Cali¬
fornia Waterfalls” which loaded his mail with
letters from near and far, and evoked admira¬
tion from the foremost writers of the time.
Though Muir was not without self-esteem, the
flood of praise that descended upon him gave
him more embarrassment than gratification,
especially when his sisters desired to know the
identity of this or that lady who had dedicated
a poem to him.

Scarcely any one knew at this time that there
was a lady not far from San Francisco who,
though not writing poems, was playing rival
to the bee pastures of his articles, and that
when, during the spring of 1879, he disap¬
peared occasionally from the Upham house¬
hold on Valencia Street, he could have been
found, and not alone, in the Strentzel orchards
at Martinez. “Every one,” writes John to Miss
Strentzel in April — “every one, according to
the eternal unfitness of civilized things, has

121

JOHN MUIR

4

been seeking me and calling on me while I was
away. John Swett, on his second failure to find
me, left word with Mr. Upham that he was
coming to Martinez some time to see me during
the summer vacation ! The other day I chanced
to find in my pocket that shppery, fuzzy mesh
you wear round your neck.^^ The feminine
world probably will recognize in the last sen¬
tence a characteristically masculine description
of a kind of head-covering fashionable in those
days and known as a ^Tascinator.”

The same letter contains evidence that, the
orchards did not let him forget them when he
returned to San Francisco, for after reporting
that he had finished ^‘Snow Banners’’ and I3
at work upon “Floods,” he breaks off in the
middle of a sentence to exclaim “Boo!!! aren’t
they lovely!!! The bushel of bloom, I mean.
Just came this moment. Never was so blankly
puzzled in making a guess before lifting the lid.
An orchard in a band-box!!! Who wad ha
thocht it? A swarm of bees and fifty hum¬
ming-birds would have made the thing com¬
plete.”

Early in the year Muir had carefully laid his
plans for a new exploration trip, this time into
the Puget Sound region. There doubtless was
something in the circumstances and uncer¬
tainties of this new venture that brought to

122

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

culmination his friendship with Miss Strentzel,
for they became engaged on the eve of his de¬
parture, though for months no one outside of
the family knew anything about it, so closely
was the secret kept. Even to Mrs. Carr, who
had ardently hoped for this outcome, he
merely wrote: ^H^m going home — going to
my summer in the snow and ice and forests of
the north coast. Will sail to-morrow at noon
on the Dakota for Victoria and Olympia. Will
then push inland and alongland. May visit
Alaska.’^

He did, as it turned out, go to Alaska that
summer, and the first literary fruitage of this
trip took the form of eleven letters to the ^^San
Francisco Evening Bulletin.’’ Written on the
spot, they preserve the freshness of his first im¬
pressions, and were read with breathless inter¬
est by an ever-enlarging circle of readers. To¬
ward the close of his life these vivid sketches
were utilized, together with his journals, in writ¬
ing the first part of his Travels in Alaska.”
It was at Fort Wrangell that he met the Re¬
verend S. Hall Young, then stationed as a
missionary among the Thlinkit Indians. Mr.
Young later accompanied him on various
canoe and land expeditions, particularly the
one up Glacier Bay, that resulted in the dis¬
covery of a number of stupendous glaciers, the

123

JOHN MUIR

largest of which was afterwards to receive the
name of Muir. In his book, Alaska Days with
John Muir,^’ Mr. Young has given a most
readable and vivid account of their experiences
together, and the interested reader will wish to
compare, among other things, the author’s own
account' of his thrilling rescue from certain
death on the precipices of Glenora Peak with
Muir’s modest description of the heroic part
he played in the adventure.

It is Young also who relates how Muir, by
his daring and original ways of inquiring into
Nature’s every mood, came to be regarded by
the Indians as a mysterious being whose mo¬
tives were beyond all conjecture. A notable
instance was the occasion on which, one wild,
stormy night, he left the shelter of Young’s
house and slid out into the inky darkness and
wind-driven sheets of rain. At two o’clock in
the morning a rain-soaked group of Indians
hammered at the missionary’s door, and begged
him to pray. ^^We scare. All Stickeen scare,”
they said, for some wakeful ones had seen a
red glow on top of a neighboring mountain and
the mysterious, portentous phenomenon had
immediately been communicated to the whole
frightened tribe. ‘‘We want you play [pray]
God; plenty play,” they said.

The reader will not find it difficult to imag-

124

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

ine what had happened, for Muir was the un¬
conscious cause of their alarm. He had made
his way through the drenching blast to the top
of a forested hill. There he had contrived to
start Si fire, a big one, to see as well as to hear
how the storm and trees were behaving.’’ At
midnight his fire, sheltered from the village by
the brow of the hill, was shedding its glow upon
the low-flying storm-clouds, striking terror to
the hearts of the Indians, who thought they saw
something that ^Vaved in the air like the
wings of a spirit.” And while they were im¬
ploring the prayers of the missionary for their
safety, Muir, according to his own account,
was sitting under a bark shelter in front of his
fire, with nothing to do but look and listen
and join the trees in their hymns and prayers.”

Meanwhile Muir’s Bulletin” letters had
greatly enlarged its circulation and were being
copied all over the country, to the great de¬
light of the editor, Sam Williams, who had long
been a warm friend of Muir. The latter’s de¬
scriptions reflected the boundless enthusiasm
which these newfound wildernesses of Alaska
aroused in him. In the Sierra Nevada his task
was to reconstruct imaginatively, from ves¬
tiges of vanished glaciers, the picture of their
prime during the ice period; but here he saw
actually at work the stupendous landscape-

125

JOHN MUIR

making glaciers of Alaska, and in their action
he found verified the conclusions of his ‘^Stud¬
ies in the Sierra/’ No wonder he tarried in the
North months beyond the time he had set for
his return. “ Every summer,” he wrote to Miss
Strentzel from Fort Wrangell in October —
every summer my gains from God’s wilds
grow greater. This last seems the greatest of
all. For the first few weeks I was so feverishly
excited with the boundless exuberance of the
woods and the wilderness, of great ice floods,
and the manifest scriptures of the ice-sheet
that modelled the lovely archipelagoes along
the coast, that I could hardly settle down to
the steady labor required in making any sort
of Truth one’s own. But I’m working now, and
feel unable to leave the field. Had a most
glorious time of it among the Stickeen glaciers,
which in some shape or other will reach you.”

Upon landing in Portland on his return in
January, he was persuaded to give several pub¬
lic lectures and to make an observation trip
up the Columbia River. At his lodgings in San
Francisco there had gathered meanwhile an
immense accumulation of letters, and among
them one that bridged the memories of a dozen
eventful years. It was from Katharine Merrill
Graydon, one of the three little Samaritans
who used to visit him after the accidental

126

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

injury to one of his eyes in an Indianapolis
wagon factory. ^^The three children you knew
best/' said the writer, ‘Hhe ones who long ago
in the dark room delighted to read to you and
bring you flowers, are now men and women.
Merrill is a young lawyer with all sorts of as¬
pirations. Janet is at home, a young lady of
leisure. Your kittle friend Katie' is teacher in
a fashionable boarding-school, which I know
is not much of a recommendation to a man who
turns his eyes away from all flowers but the
wild rose and the sweet-brier." The main oc¬
casion of the letter was to introduce Professor
David Starr Jordan and Mr. Charles Gilbert,
who were going to the Pacific Coast. send
this," continued the writer, with a little quak¬
ing of the heart. What if you should ask, ^ Who
is Kate Graydon? ' Still I have faith that even
ten or twelve years have not obliterated the
pleasant little friendship formed one summer
so long ago. The remembrance on my part was
wonderfully quickened one morning nearly
two years ago when Professor Jordan read to
our class the sweetest, brightest, most musical
article on the ^ Water Ouzel' from ^Scribner's.'
The writer, he said, was John Muir. The way
my acquaintance of long ago developed into
friendship, and the way I proudly said I knew
you, would have made you laugh."

127

JOHN MUIR

This letter brought the following response:

To Miss Katharine Merrill Graydon

920 Valencia Street, San Francisco
February 5th, 1880

My deae Katie, Miss Kate Gkaydon,

Professor of Greek and English Literature,
etc.

My deae, feail, wee, bashful lassie and
DEAE Madam:

I was delighted with your bright charming
letter introducing your friends Professor [David
Starr] Jordan and Charles Gilbert. I have not
yet met either of the gentlemen. They are at
Santa Barbara, but expect to be here in April,
when I hope to see them and like them for your
sake, and Janet^s, and their own worth.

Some time ago I learned that you were teach¬
ing Greek, and of all the strange things in this
changeful world, this seemed the strangest, and
the most difficult to get packed quietly down
into my awkward mind. Therefore I will have to
get you to excuse the confusion I fell into at the
beginning of my letter. I mean to come to you
in a year or two, or any time soon, to see you
all in your new developments. The sweet
blooming underbrush of boys and girls —
Moores, Merrills, Gray dons, etc. — was very
refreshing and pleasant to me all my Indiana

128

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

days, and now that you have all grown up into
trees, strong and thrifty, waving your out-
reaching branches in God^s Light, I am sure I
shall love you all. Going to Indianapolis is one
of the brightest of my hopes. It seems but
yesterday since I left you all. And indeed, in
very truth, all these years have been to me one
imbroken day, one continuous walk in one
grand garden.

I^m glad you like my wee dear ouzel. He is
one of the most complete of God^s small dar¬
lings. I found him in Alaska a month or two
ago. I made a long canoe trip of seven hundred
miles from Fort Wrangell northward, exploring
the glaciers and icy fiords of the coast and in¬
land channels with one white man and four
Indians. And on the way back to Wrangell,
while exploring one of the deep fiords with
lofty walls like those of Yosemite Valley, and
with its waters crowded with immense bergs
discharged from the noble glaciers, I found a
single specimen of his blessed tribe. We had
camped on the shore of the fiord among huge
icebergs that had been stranded at high tide,
and next morning made haste to get away,
fearing that we would be frozen in for the
winter; and while pushing our canoe through
the bergs, admiring and fearing the grand
beauty of the icy wilderness, my blessed favor-

129

JOHN MUIR

ite came out from the shore to see me, flew once
round the boat, gave one cheery note of wel¬
come, while seeming to say, ^‘You need not
fear this ice and frost, for you see I am here,’^
then flew back to the shore and ahghted on the
edge of a big white berg, not so far away but
that I could see him doing his happy manners.

In this one summer in the white Northland
I have seen perhaps ten times as many glaciers
as there are in all Switzerland. But I cannot
hope to tell you about them now, or hardly
indeed at any time, for the best things and
thoughts one gets from Nature we dare not
tell. I will be so happy to see you again, not to
renew my acquaintance, for that has not been
for a moment interrupted, but to know you
better in your new growth.

Ever your friend

John Muir

Years afterwards Dr. Jordan, as he notes in
his autobiography, ^‘The Days of a Man,^^ took
the opportunity to bestow the name Ouzel
Basin on the old glacier channel ^^near which
John Muir sketched his unrivaled biography
of a water ouzel.

Any one who has heard the February merri¬
ment of Western meadowlarks in the Alhambra
Valley must know that winter gets but a slight

130

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

foothold there, for it tilts toward the sun, and
is in full radiance of blossom and song during
March and April. John Muir and Louie Wanda
Strentzel chose the fourteenth of the latter
flower month for their wedding day and were
ready to share their secret with their friends.
^Wished the immortals Brown and Swett,^’
confesses John to his fiancee in one of his notes,
and the announcement was followed immedi¬
ately by shoals of congratulatory letters. The
one from Mrs. John Swett, in whose home he
had spent so many happy days, is not only
fairly indicative of the common opinion, but
draws some lines of Muir’s character that make
it worthy of a place here.

To Louie Wanda Strentzel

San Francisco,
Avril 8, 1880

My dear Miss Strentzel:

When Mr. Muir made his appearance the
other night I thought he had a sheepish twinkle
in his eye, but ascribed it to a guilty conscious¬
ness that he had been up to Martinez again and
a fear of being rallied about it. Judge then of
the sensation when he exploded his bomb¬
shell ! At first laughing incredulity — it was
April. We were on our guard against being
taken in, but the mention of Dr. Dwinell’s

131

JOHN MUIR

name and a date settled it, and I have hunted
up a pen to write you a letter of congratulation.
For John and I are jubilant over the match. It
gratifies completely our sense of fitness, for you
both have a fair foundation of the essentials of
good health, good looks, good temper, etc.
Then you both have culture, and to crown all
you have prospects’^ and he has talent and
distinction.

But I hope you are good at a hair-splitting
argument. You will need to be to hold your
own with him. Five times to-day has he van¬
quished me. Not that I admitted it to him —
no, never! He not only excels in argument, but
always takes the highest ground — is always
on the right side. He told Colonel Boyce the
other night that his position was that of cham¬
pion for a mean, brutal pohcy. It was with re¬
gard to Indian extermination, and that he
(Boyce) would be ashamed to carry it with one
Indian in personal conflict. I thought the
Colonel would be mad, but they walked off arm
in arm. Further, he is so truthful that he not
only will never embellish sketch or word-
picture by any imaginary addition, but even
retains every unsightly feature lest his picture
should not be true.

There, I have said all I can in his favor, and
as an offset I must tell you that I have been

132

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

trying all day to soften his hard heart of an old
animosity and he won’t yield an inch. It is
sometimes impossible to please him. . . .

With hearty regard, I am

Yours very truly

Maky Louise Swett

The occasion of the following letter was one
from Miss Graydon in which she ralHed him on
her sudden discovery of how much sympathy
she had wasted on him because she had im¬
agined him without friends or companions ex¬
cept glaciers and icebergs, and without even a
mother to wear out her anxious heart about
him. heard,” she wrote, ^‘that your mother
was still living and that you had not been near
her for twelve years. And then, while I sup¬
posed you had not a lady friend in the world, I
heard you were the center of an adoring circle
of ladies in San Francisco. If you heard any
one laugh about that time, it was I. See if I
ever waste my sympathy on you again!”

To Miss Katharine Merrill Graydon

1419 Taylor St., San Francisco
April 12th, 1880

My dear girl-woman, Katie and Miss Kate :

Your letter of March 28th has reached me,
telling how much loving sympathy I am to

133

JOHN MUIR

have because I have a mother, and because of
the story of my adoring circle of lady friends.
Well, what is to become of me when I tell you
that I am to marry one of those friends the day
after to-morrow? What sympathy will be left
the villain who has a mother and a wife also,
and even a home and a circle, etc., and twice as
muckle as sJ that? But now, even now, Katie,
don^t, don’t withdraw your sympathy. You
know that I never did demand pity for the
storm-beatings and rock-beds and the hunger
and loneliness of all these years since you were
a frail wee lass, for I have been very happy and
strong through it all — the happiest man I ever
saw; but, nevertheless, I want to hold on to and
love all my friends, for they are the most pre¬
cious of all my riches.

I hope to see you all this year or next, and no
amount of marrying will diminish the enjoy¬
ment of meeting you again. And some of you
will no doubt come to this side of the Continent,
and then how happy I will be to welcome you
to a warm little home in the Contra Costa hills
near the bay.

I have been out of town for a week or two,
and have not seen much of Professor Jordan
and Mr. Gilbert. They are very busy about
the fishes, crabs, clams, oysters, etc. Have
called at his hotel two or three times, and have

134

NEVADA, ALASKA, AND A HOME

'had some good Moores and Merrill talks, but
nothing short of a good long excursion in the
free wilderness would ever mix us as much as
you seem to want.

Now, my brave teacher lassie, good luck to
you. Heaven bless you, and beheve me,

Ever truly your friend

John Muir

It was fitting, perhaps, that one who loved
Nature in her wildest moods, should have his
wedding day distinguished by a roaring rain¬
storm through which he drove Dr. I. E.
Dwinell, the officiating clergyman, back to the
Martinez station in a manner described by the
latter as “like the rush of a torrent down the
canon. Both relatives and friends, to judge by
their letters, were so completely surprised by
the happy event that it proved “a nine days’
wonder.” The social stir occasioned by the
wedding was, however, far from gratifying to
Mr. Muir, who had to summon all his courage
to prevent his besetting bashfulness from driv¬
ing him to the seclusion of the nearest canon.

But lest the reader imagine that Muir’s
home was henceforward to be on the beaten
crossways of annoying crowds, let me hasten to
add that the old Strentzel home, which the
bride’s parents vacated for their daughter, was

135

J

JOHN MUIR

a more than ordinarily secluded and quiet
place. Cascades of ivy and roses fell over the
corners of the wide verandas, and the slope upon
which the house stood had an air of leaning
upon its elbows and looking tranquilly down
across hill-girt orchards to the blue waters of
Carquinez Straits. There, a mile away, at the
entrance of the valley, nestled the little town
of Martinez, but scarcely a whisper of its ac¬
tivities might be heard above the contented
hum of Alhambra bees. It was an ideal place
for a hone3anoon and there we leave the happy
pair.

CHAPTER XIV

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP AND THE SEARCH
FOR THE JEANNETTE

1880-1882

I

After his marriage Muir rented from his
father-in-law a part of the Strentzel ranch, and
then proceeded with great thoroughness to
master the art of horticulture, for which he pos¬
sessed natural and perhaps inherited aptitude.
But when July came, the homing instinct for
the wilderness again grew strong within him.
He doubtless had an understanding with his
wife that he was to continue during the next
summer the imfinished explorations of 1879.
The lure of “something lost behind the ranges”
was in his case a glacier, as Mr. Young reports
in his “Alaska Days with John Muir.” The
more immediate occasion of his departure was
a letter from his friend Thomas Magee, of San
Francisco, urging him to join him on a trip to
southeastern Alaska. The two had traveled
together before, and he acted at once upon
the suggestion, leaving for the North on July
30th.

137

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs, Muir

Off Cape Flattery
Monday, August 2d, 1880
10 A.M.

My dear Wife:

All goes well. In a few hours we will be in
Victoria. The voyage thus far has been singu¬
larly calm and uneventful. Leaving you is the
only event that has marred the trip and it is
marred sorely, but I shall make haste to you
and reach you ere you have the time to grieve
and weary. If you will only be calm and cheery
all will be better for my short spell of ice- work.

The sea has been very smooth, nevertheless
Mr. Magee has been very sick. Now he is
better. As for me I have made no sign, though
I have had some headache and heartache. We
are now past the Flattery Rocks, where we were
so roughly storm-tossed last winter, and Neah
Bay, where we remained thirty-six hours. How
placid it seems now — the water black and
gray with reflections from the cloudy sky, fur
seals popping their heads up here and there,
ducks and gulls dotting the small waves, and
Indian fishing-boats towards the shore, each
with a small glaring red flag flying from the
masthead.

Behind the group of white houses nestled in
the deepest bend of the bay rise rounded, ice-

138

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

swept hills, with mountains beyond them fold¬
ing in and in, in beautiful braids, and all densely
forested. We are so near the shore that with
the maters glasses I can readily make out some
of the species of the trees. The forest is in the
main scarce at all different from those of the
Alaskan coast. Now the Cape Lighthouse is
out of sight and we are fairly into the strait.
Vancouver Island is on [the] left in fine clear
view, with forests densely packed in every hol¬
low and over every hill and mountain. How
beautiful it is! How deep and shadowy its
canons, how eloquently it tells the story of its
sculpture during the Age of Ice! How perfectly
virgin it is! Ships loaded with Nanaimo coal
and Puget Sound coal and lumber, a half-
dozen of them, are about us, beating their way
down the strait, and here and there a pilot boat
to represent civilization, but not one scar on the
virgin shore, nor the smoke of a hut or camp.

I have just been speaking with a man who
has spent a good deal of time on the island. He
says that so impenetrable is the underbrush,
his party could seldom make more than two
miles a day though assisted by eight Indians.
Only the shores are known.

Now the wind is beginning to freshen and
the small waves are tipped with white, milk-
white, caps, almost the only ones we have seen

139

JOHN MUIR

since leaving San Francisco. The Captain and
first officer have been very attentive to us,
giving us the use of their rooms and books, etc.,
besides answering all our questions anent the
sea and ships.

We shall reach Victoria about two or three
o’clock. The California will not sail before to¬
morrow sometime, so that we shall have plenty
[of] time to get the charts and odds and ends
we need before leaving. Mr. Magee will un¬
doubtedly go on to Wrangell, but will not be
likely to stop over.

Ten minutes past two by your clock

We are just rounding the Esquimalt Light¬
house, and in a few minutes more will be tied
up at the wharf. Quite a lively breeze is blow¬
ing from the island, and the strait is ruffled
with small shining wavelets glowing in the
distance like silver. Hereabouts many lofty
moutonn^ed rock-bosses rise above the forests,
bare of trees, but brown looking from the
mosses that cover them. Since entering the
strait, the heavy swell up and down, up and
down, has vanished and all the sick have got
well and are out in full force, gazing at the
harbor with the excitement one always feels
after a voyage, whether the future offers much
brightness or not.

140

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

I

The new Captain of the California is said to
be good and careful, and the pilot and purser I
know well, so that we will feel at home during
the rest of our trip as we have thus far; and as
for the main objects, all Nature is unchange¬
able, loves us all, and grants gracious welcome
to every honest votary.

I hope you do not feel that I am away at all.
Any real separation is not possible. I have
been alone, as far as [concerns] the isolation
that distance makes, so much of my lifetime
that separation seems more natural than ab¬
solute contact, which seems too good and in¬
dulgent to be true.

Her Majesty ^s ironclad Triumph is lying
close alongside. How huge she seems and im¬
pertinently strong and defiant, with a back¬
ground of honest green woods! Jagged-toothed
wolves and wildcats harmonize smoothly
enough, but engines for the destruction of hu¬
man beings are only devilish, though they
carry preachers and prayers and open up
views of sad, scant tears. Now we are making
fast. '^Make fast that line there, make fast,’'
‘Tet go there,” ^‘give way.”

We will go on to Victoria this afternoon,
taking our baggage with us, and stay there
until setting out on the California. The ride of
three miles through the woods and round the

141

JOHN MUIR

glacial bosses is very fine. This you would en¬
joy. I shall look for the roses. Will mail this at
once, and write again before leaving this grand
old ice-ribbed island.

And now, my dear Louie, keep a good heart
and do the bits of work I requested you to do,
and the days in Alaska will go away fast enough
and I will be with you again as if I had been
gone but one day.

Ever your affectionate husband

John Muir

To Mrs. Muir

Victoria, B.C.

August 3, 1880, 3.45 p.m.

Dear Louie :

The Vancouver roses are out of bloom here¬
abouts but I may possibly find some near
Nanaimo. I mailed you a letter yesterday
which you will probably receive with this.

Arriving at Esquimalt we hired a carriage
driven by a sad-eyed and sad-lipped negro to
take us with all our baggage to Victoria, some
three miles distant. The horses were also of
melancholic aspect, lean and clipper-built in
general, but the way they made the fire fly from
the glacial gravel would have made Saint Jose
and his jet beef-sides hide in the dust. By dint
of much blunt praise of his team he put them

142

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

to their wiry spring-steel metal and we passed
everything on the road with a whirr — cab,
cart, carriage, and carryall. We put up at the
Driard House and had a square, or cubical,
meal. Put on a metallic countenance to the
landlord on account of the money and ex¬
perience we carried, nearly scared him out of
his dignity and made him give us good rooms.

At 6.45 p.M. the California arrived, and we
went aboard and had a chat with Hughes, the
purser. He at once inquired whether I had any
one with me, meaning you, as Vanderbilt had
given our news. Learned that the California
would not sail until this evening and made up
our minds to take a drive out in the highways
and byways adjacent to the town. While
strolling about the streets last evening I felt a
singular interest in the Thlinkit Indians I met
and something like a missionary spirit came
over me. Poor fellows, I wish I could serve
them.

There is good eating, but poor sleeping here.
My bed was but little like our own at home.
Met Major Morris, the Treasury agent, this
morning. He is going up with us. He is, you
remember, the writer of that book on Alaska
that I brought with me.

About nine o’clock we got a horse and buggy
at the livery stable and began our devious drive

143

JOHN MUIR

by going back to the Dakota to call on First
Officer Griffith and give him a box of weeds for
his kind deeds. Then took any road that offered
out into the green leafy country. How beauti¬
ful it is, every road banked high and embow¬
ered in dense, fresh, green, tall ferns six to eight
feet high close to the wheels, then spirsea, two
or three species, wild rose bushes, madrono,
hazel, hawthorn, then a host of young Douglas
spruces and silver firs with here and there a
yew with its red berries and dark foliage, and a
maple or two, then the tall firs and spruces
forming the forest primeval. We came to a
good many fields of grain, but all of them small
as compared with the number of the houses.
The oats and barley are just about ripe. We
saw httle orchards, too; a good many pears,
little red-brown fellows, six hatfuls per tree,
and the queerest little sprinkling of little red
and yellow cherries just beginning to ripen.
Many of the cottage homes about town are as
lovely as a cottage may be, embowered in
honeysuckle and green gardens and bits of lavm
and orchard and grand oaks with lovely out¬
looks. The day has been delightful. How you
would have enjoyed it — all three of you.

Our baggage is already aboard and the hour
draws nigh. I must go. I shall write you again
from Nanaimo.

144

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

Good-bye again, my love. Keep a strong
heart and speedily will fly the hours that bring
me back to thee. Love to mother and father.
Farewell.

Ever your affectionate husband

John Muir

To Mrs, Muir

On boaed the California
10 A.M., August 4ihf 1880

Dear Louie :

We are still lying alongside the wharf at Vic¬
toria. It seems a leak was discovered in one of
the watertanks that had to be mended, and the
result was that we could not get off on the
seven o’clock tide last night.

Victoria seems a dry, dignified, half-idle
town, supported in great part by government
fees. Every erect, or more than erect, back-
leaning, man has an office, and carries himself
with that peculiar aplomb that all the Hail
Britannia people are so noted for. The wharf
and harbor stir is very mild. The steamer
Princess Louise lies alongside ours, getting
ready for the trip to New Westminster on [the]
Fraser River. The Hudson’s Bay Company’s
steamer Otter, a queer old tubby craft, left for
the North last night. A few sloops, plungers,
and boats are crawling about the harbor or ly-

145

JOHN MUIR

ing at anchor, doing or dreaming a business no¬
body knows. Yonder comes an Indian canoe
with its one unique sail calling up memories,
many, of my last winter^s rambles among the
icebergs. The water is ruffled with a slight
breeze, scarce enough for small white-caps.
Though clearer than the waters of most har¬
bors, it is not without the ordinary drift of old
bottles, straw, and defunct domestic animals.
How rotten the piles of the wharf are, and how
they smell, even in this cool climate!

They are taking hundreds of barrels of mo¬
lasses aboard — for what purpose? To delight
the Alaska younglings with ’lasses bread and
smear their happy chubby cheeks, or to make
cookies and gingerbread? No, whiskey, Indian
whiskey! It will be bought by Indians, nine
tenths of it and more; they will give their hard-
earned money for it, and their hard-caught furs,
and take it far away along many a glacial
channel and inlet, and make it into crazing
poison. Onions, too, many a ton, are coming
aboard to boil and fry and raise a watery cry.

Alone on the wharf, I see a lone stranger
dressed in shabby black. He has a kind of un¬
nerved, drooping look, his shoulders coming
together and his toes and his knees and the
two ends of his vertebral column, something
like a withering leaf in hot sunshine. Poor

146

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

fellow, he looks at our ship as if he wanted to go
again to the mines to try his luck. And here
come two Indian women and a little girl trot¬
ting after them. They seem as if they were
coming aboard, but turn aside at the edge of
the wharf and descend rickety stairs to their
canoe, tied to a pile beneath the wharf. Now
they reappear with change of toilet, and the
little girl is carrying a bundle, something to eat
or sell or sit on.

Yonder comes a typical John Bull, grand in
size and style, carmine in countenance, abdom¬
inous and showing a fine tight curve from chin
to knee, when seen in profile, yet benevolent
withal and reliable, confidence-begetting. And
here just landed opposite our ship is a pile of
hundreds of bears’ skins, black and brown, from
Alaska, brought here by the Otter, a few deer
skins too, and wildcat and wolverine. The
^ Hudson’s Bay Company men are about them,
showing their ownership.

Ten minutes to twelve 6^ clock

'^Let go that line there,” etc., tells that we
are about to move. Our steamer swings slowly
round and heads for Nanaimo. How beautiful
the shores are! How glacial, yet how leafy!
The day becomes calmer, and brighter, and
everybody seems happy. Our fellow passen-

147

JOHN MUIR

gers are Major Morris and wife, whom I met
last year, Judge Deady, a young Englishman,
and [a] dreamy, silent old gray man like a min¬
ister.

8 P.M.

We are entering Nanaimo Harbor.

To Mrs, Muir

Departure Bay
A FEW MILES FROM NaNAIMO
9 A.M., August 5th, 1880

Deab Louie :

We are coaling here, and what a rumble they
are making ! The shores here are very imposing,
a beveled bluff, topped with giant cedar, spruce,
and fir and maple with varying green; here and
there a small madrono too, which here is near
its northern limit.

We went ashore last eve at Nanaimo for a
stroll, Magee and I, and we happened to meet
Mr. Morrison, a man that I knew at Fort
Wrangell, who told me particulars of the sad
Indian war in which Toyatte was killed. He
was present and gave very graphic descrip¬
tions.

We sailed hither at daylight this morning,
and will probably get away, the Captain tells
me, about eleven o’clock, and then no halt

148

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

until we reach Wrangell, which is distant from
here about sixty hours.

I hardly know, my lassie, what IVe been
writing, nothing, I fear, but very small odds
and ends, and yet these may at least keep you
from wearying for an hour, and the letters,
poor though they be, shall yet tell my love, and
that will redeem them. I mail this here, the
other two were mailed in Victoria, my next
from Wrangell.

Heaven bless you, my love, and mother and
father. I trust that you are caring for yourself
and us all by keeping cheery and strong, and
avoiding the bad practice of the stair-dance.
Once more, my love, farewell, I must close in
haste. Farewell.

Ever your affectionate husband

John Muir

Missionary S. Hall Young was standing on
the wharf at Fort Wrangell on the 8th of
August, watching the California coming in,
when to his great joy he spied John Muir stand¬
ing on the deck and waving his greetings.
Springing nimbly ashore, Muir at once fired at
him the question, ^‘When can you be ready? ’’
In response to Young’s expostulations over his
haste, and his failure to bring his wife, he ex¬
claimed: “Man, have you forgotten? Don’t

149

JOHN MUIR

you know we lost a glacier last fall? Do you
think I could sleep soundly in my bed this
winter with that hanging on my conscience?
My wife could not come, so I have come alone
and youVe got to go with me to find the lost.
Get your canoe and crew and let us be off.^'

To Mrs, Muir

Sitka on board the California
Aiigust IQth, 1880
10.30 p.M. oj your time

My own dear Louie :

I^m now about as far from you as I will be
this year — only this wee sail to the North and
then to thee, my lassie. And I’m not away at
all, you know, for only they who do not love
may ever be apart. There is no true separation
for those whose hearts and souls are together.
So much for love and philosophy. And now
I must trace you my way since leaving Na¬
naimo.

We sailed smoothly through the thousand
evergreen isles, and arrived at Fort Wrangell
at 4.30 A.M. on the 8th. Left Wrangell at noon
of the same day and arrived here on the 9th at
6 A.M. Spent the day in friendly greetings and
saunterings. Found Mr. Vanderbilt and his
wife and Johnnie and, not every way least,
though last, httle Annie, who is grown in

150

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

stature and grace and beauty since last I
kissed her.

To-day Mr. Vanderbilt kindly took myself
and Mr. Magee and three other fellow passen¬
gers on an excursion on his steamer up Peril
Strait, about fifty miles. (You can find it on
one of the charts that I forgot to bring.) We
returned to the California about half-past nine,
completing my way thus far.

And now for my future plans. The Cali¬
fornia sails to-morrow afternoon some time for
Fort Wrangell, and I mean to return on her
and from there set out on my canoe trip. I do
not expect to be detained at Wrangell, inasmuch
as I saw Mr. [S. Hall] Young, who promised to
have a canoe and crew ready. I mean to keep
close along the mainland, exploring the deep
inlets in turn, at least as far north as the Taku,
then push across to Cross Sound and follow
the northern shore, examining the glaciers that
crowd into the deep inlet that puts back north¬
ward from near the south extremity of the
Sound, where I was last year. Thence I mean
to return eastward along the southern shore of
the Sound to Chatham Strait, turn southward
down the west shore of the Strait to Peril
Strait, and follow this strait to Sitka, where I
shall take the California. Possibly, however, I
may, should I not be pushed for time, return to

151

JOHN MUIR

Wrangell. Mr. Magee will, I think, go with
me, though very unwilling to do so. . . .

August llthy at noon

I have just returned from a visit to the James¬
town. The Commander, Beardslee, paid me a
visit here last evening, and invited me aboard
his ship. Had a pleasant chat, and an invita¬
tion to make the Jamestown my home while
here.

I also found my friend Koshoto, the Chief of
the Hoonas, the man who, I told you, had en¬
tertained Mr. Young and me so well last year
on Cross Sound, and who made so good a
speech. He is here trading, and seemed greatly
pleased to learn that I was going to pay him an¬
other visit ; said that meeting me was hke meet¬
ing his own brother who was dead, his heart
felt good, etc. . . .

I have been learning all about the death of
the brave and good old Toyatte. I think that
Dr. Corhss, one of the Wrangell missionaries,
made a mistake in reference to the seizure of
some whiskey, which caused the beginning of
the trouble.

This is a bright, soft, balmy day. How you
would enjoy it! You must come here some day
when you are strong enough. . . . Everybody
inquires first on seeing me, ^^Have you brought

152

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

your wife?’’ and then, ^^Have you a photo¬
graph?” and then pass condenmation for com¬
ing alone! . . .

The mail is about to close, and I must write
to mother.

Affectionately your husband

John Muir

How eagerly I shall look for news when I
reach Fort Wrangell next month!

To Mrs. Muir

Residence of Mr. Young, Fort Wrangell
11.45 A.M., August lUh, 1880

Dear Louie :

I am back in my old quarters, and how famil¬
iar it all seems! — the lovely water, the islands,
the Indians with their baskets and blankets
and berries, the jet ravens prying and flying
here and there, and the bland, dreamy, hushed
air drooping and brooding kindly over all. I
miss Toyatte so much. I have just been over
the battleground with Mr. Young, and have
seen the spot where he fell.

Instead of coming here direct from Sitka we
called at Klawak on Prince of Wales Island for
freight, — canned salmon, oil, furs, etc., — which
detained us a day. We arrived here last even¬
ing at half-past ten. Klawak is a fishing and

153

JOHN MUIR

trading station located in a most charmingly
beautiful bay, and while lying there, the even¬
ing before last, we witnessed a glorious auroral
display which lasted more than three hours.
First we noticed long white lance-shaped
streamers shooting up from a dark cloud-like
mass near the horizon, then a well-defined arch,
the corona, almost black, with a luminous edge
appeared, and from it, radiating hke spokes
from a hub, the streamers kept shooting with a
quick glancing motion, and remaining drawn
on the dark sky, distinct, and white, as fine
lines drawn on a blackboard. And when half
the horizon was adorned with these silky
fibrous lances of fight reaching to and converg¬
ing at the zenith, broad flapping folds and
waves of the same white auroral fight came
surging on from the corona with astonishing
energy and quickness, the folds and waves
spending themselves near the zenith like
waves on a smooth sloping sand-beach. But
throughout the greater portion of their courses
the motion was more like that of sheet light¬
ning, or waves made in broad folds of muslin
when rapidly shaken; then in a few minutes
those delicate billows of fight rolled up among
the silken streamers, would vanish, leaving the
more lasting streamers with the stars shining
through them; then some of the seemingly

154

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

permanent streamers would vanish also, and
appear again in vivid white, like rockets shoot¬
ing with widening base, their glowing shafts re¬
flected in the calm water of the bay among the
stars.

It was all so rare and so beautiful and excit¬
ing to us that we gazed and shouted like chil¬
dren at a show, and in the middle of it all, after
I was left alone on deck at about half-past
eleven, the whole sky was suddenly illumined
by the largest meteor I ever saw. I remained
on deck until after midnight, watching. The
corona became crimson and slightly flushed
the bases of the streamers, then one by one the
shining pillars of the glorious structure were
taken down, the foundation arch became ir¬
regular and broke up, and all that was left was
only a faint structureless glow along the north¬
ern horizon, like the beginning of the dawn of a
clear frosty day. The only sounds were the
occasional shouts of the Indians, and the im¬
pressive roar of a waterfall.

Mr. Young and I have just concluded a bar¬
gain with the Indians, Lot and his friend, to
take us in his canoe for a month or six weeks,
at the rate of sixty dollars per month. Our com¬
pany will be those two Indians, and Mr. Young
and myself, also an Indian boy that Mr. Young
is to take to his parents at Chilkat, and possi-

155

JOHN MUIR

bly Colonel Crittenden as far as Holkham
Bay. . . .

You will notice, dear, that I have changed the
plan I formerly sent you in this, that I go on to
the Chilkat for Mr. Young's sake, and farther;
now that Mr. Magee is out of the trip, I shall
not feel the necessity I previously felt of get¬
ting back to Sitka or Wrangell in time for the
next steamer, though it is barely possible that
I shall. Do not look for me, however, as it is
likely I shall have my hands full for two
months. To-morrow is Sunday, so we shall not
get away before Monday, the 16th. How hard
it is to wait so long for a letter from you! I
shall not get a word until I return. I am trying
to trust that you will be patient and happy,
and have that work done that we talked of.

Every one of my old acquaintances seems
cordially glad to see me. I have not yet seen
Shakes, the Chief, though I shall ere we leave.
He is now one of the principal church members,
while Kadachan has been getting drunk in the
old style, and is likely, Mr. Young tells me, to
be turned out of the church altogether. John,
our last year's interpreter, is up in the Cassiar
mines. Mrs. McFarlane, Miss Dunbar, and
the Youngs are all uncommonly anxious to
know you, and are greatly disappointed in not
seeing you here, or at least getting a peep at

156

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

your picture. “Why could she not have come
up and stayed with us while you were about
your ice business?^’ they ask in disappointed
tone of voice.

Now, my dear wife, the California will soon
be saihng southward, and I must again bid you
good-bye. I must go, but you, my dear, will go
with me all the way. How gladly when my
work is done will I go back to thee! With love
to mother and father, and hoping that God will
bless and keep you all, I am ever in heart and
soul the same, John Muir

6 p.M. I have just dashed off a short “Bulle¬
tins^ letter.

The events that followed are graphically
narrated in Part II of “Travels in Alaska.
Eight days after his arrival at Fort Wrangell,
Muir and Mr. Young got started with their
party, which consisted of the two Stickeen In¬
dians — Lot Tyeen and Hunter Joe — and a
half-breed named Smart Billy. There was also
Mr. Young’s dog Stickeen, whom Mr. Muir at
first accepted rather grudgingly as a super¬
charge of the already crowded canoe, but who
later won his admiration and became the sub¬
ject of one of the noblest dog stories in English
literature.

157

JOHN MUIR

The course of the expedition led through
Wrangell Narrows between Mitkof and Ku-
preanof Islands, up Frederick Sound past Cape
Fanshaw and across Port Houghton, and then
up Stephens Passage to the entrance of Holk-
ham Bay, also called Sumdum. Fourteen and
a half hours up the Endicott Arm of this bay,
which Muir was the first white man to explore,
he found the glacier he had suspected there —
a stream of ice three quarters of a mile wide
and eight or nine hundred feet deep, discharg¬
ing bergs with sounds of thunder. He had
scarcely finished a sketch of it when he ob¬
served another glacial canon on the west side
of the fiord and, directing his crew to pull
around a glaciated promontory, they came into
full view of a second glacier, still pouring its
ice into a branch of the fiord. Muir gave the
first of these glaciers the name Young in honor
of his companion, who complains that some
later chart-maker substituted the name Dawes,
thus committing the larceny of stealing his
glacier.

In retracing their course, after some days
spent in exploring the head of the fiord, they
struck a side-arm through which the water was
rushing with great force. Threading the nar¬
row entrance, they found themselves in what
Muir described as a new Yosemite in the mak-

158

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

ing. He called it Yosemite Bay, and has fur¬
nished a charming description of its flora,
fauna, and physical characteristics in his
‘^Travels in Alaska.

On August 21st, Young being detained by
missionary duties, Muir set out alone with the
Indians to explore what is now known as the
Tracy Arm of Holkham Bay. The second day
he found another kingly glacier hidden within
the benmost bore of the fiord. There is your
lost friend,’’ said the Indians, laughing, and as
the thunder of its detaching bergs reached their
ears, they added, '^He says, Sagh-a-ya?” (How
do you do?)

After leaving Taku Inlet, Muir laid his course
north through Stephens Passage and around
the end of Admiralty Island, where a camp was
made only with difficulty. The next morning
he crossed the Lynn Canal with his boat and
crew and pitched camp, after a voyage of
twenty miles, on the west end of Farewell Is¬
land, now Pyramid Island. Early the following
day they turned Point Wimbledon, crept along
the lofty north wall of Cross Sound, and en¬
tered Taylor Bay. During a part of this trip,
the canoe was exposed to a storm and swells
rolling in past Cape Spencer from the open
ocean. It was an undertaking that called for
courage, skill, and hardihood of no mean order,

159

JOHN MUIR

At the head of Taylor Bay, Muir found a
great glacier consisting of three branches whose
combined fronts had an extent of about eight
miles. Camp was made near one of these fronts
in the evening of August 29th. Early the fol¬
lowing morning, Muir became aware that
wild storm was blowing and calling,^’ and be¬
fore any one was astir he was off — too eager
to stop for breakfast — into the rain-laden gale,
and out upon the glacier. It was one of the great,
inspired days of his life, immortalized in the
story of ^^Stickeen,^^ the brave httle dog ^ that
had become his inseparable companion.

Muir^s time was growing short, so he has¬
tened on with his party the next day into Gla¬
cier Bay, where among other great glaciers he
had discovered the previous autumn the one
that now bears his name. Several days were
spent there most happily, exploring and ob¬
serving glacial action, and then the canoe was
turned Sitka-ward by way of Icy, Chatham,
and Peril Straits, arriving in time to enable
him to catch there the monthly mail steamer

^ Mr. Muir received so many letters inquiring about the
dog’s antecedents that he asked Mr. Young in 1897 to tell
him what he knew of Stickeen’s earlier history. Some readers
may be interested in his reply, which was as follows: “Mrs.

Young got him as a present from Mr. H - , that Irish

sinner who hved in a cottage up the beach towards the Pres¬
byterian Mission in Sitka.”

160

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

to Portland. Thus ended the Alaska trip of
1880.

II

After all, have you not found there is some
happiness in this world outside of glaciers, and
other glories of nature?^’ The friend who put
this question to John Muir, in a letter full of
pleasantries and congratulations, had just re¬
ceived from him a jubilant note announcing
the arrival of a baby daughter on March 27th.
His fondness of children now had scope for in¬
dulgence at home, and he became a most de¬
voted husband and father.

But for the time being he was to be deprived
of this new domestic joy. For when he re¬
ceived an invitation to accompany the United
States Revenue steamer Corwin on an Arc¬
tic rehef expedition in search of DeLong and
the Jeannette, it was decided in family council
that so unusual an opportunity to explore the
northern parts of Alaska and Siberia must not
be neglected. His preparations had to be made
in great haste while the citizens of Oakland
were giving a banquet in honor of Captain
C. L. Hooper and the officers of the Corwin at
the Galinda Hotel in Oakland on April 29th.
Fortunately, the Captain was an old friend
whom he had known in Alaska and to whom

161

JOHN MUIR

he could entrust the purchase of the necessary
polar garments from the natives in Bering
Straits.

The Corwin sailed from San Francisco on
May 4, 1881, and the following series of letters
was written to his wife during the cruise. They
supplement at many points the more formal
account of his experiences published in ^^The
Cruise of the Corwin.’^ One of the objectives
of the expedition was Wrangell Land in the
Arctic Ocean, north of the Siberian coast, be¬
cause it had been the expressed intention of
Commander DeLong to reach the North Pole
by traveling along its eastern coast, leaving
cairns at intervals of twenty-five miles. It was
not known at this time that Wrangell Land
did not extend toward the Pole, but was an
island of comparatively small extent. It was
found later, by the log of the Jeannette, that
the vessel had drifted, within sight of the is¬
land, directly across the meridians between
which it lies. While the Corwin was still
searching for her and her crew, the Jeannette
was crushed in the ice and sank on June 12,
1881, in the Arctic Ocean, one hundred and
fifty miles north of the New Siberian Islands.

Meanwhile Captain Hooper succeeded in
penetrating, with the Corwin, the ice barrier
that surrounded Wrangell Land. So far as

162

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

known, the first human beings that ever stood
upon the shores of this mysterious island were
in Captain Hooper’s landing party, August
12, 1881, and John Muir was of the number.
The earliest news of the event, and of the fact
that DeLong had not succeeded in touching
either Herald Island or Wrangell Land, reached
the world at large in a letter from Muir pub¬
lished in the ^^San Francisco Evening Bulle¬
tin,” September 29, 1881.

Since the greater part of the first two letters,
written to his wife at sea and while approaching
Unalaska, was quoted in the writer’s introduc¬
tion to ^^The Cruise of the Corwin,” they are
omitted here for the sake of brevity.

To Mrs, Muir
Monday, 4 p.m.. May 16, [1881]

Dear Louie :

Since writing this forenoon, we reached the
mouth of the strait that separates Unalaska
Island from the next to the eastward, against
a strong headwind and through rough snow
squalls, when the Captain told me that he
thought he would not venture through the
Strait to-day, because the swift flood tide set¬
ting through the Strait against the wind was
surely raising a dangerously rough sea, but

rather seek an anchorage somewhere in the

163

JOHN MUIR

lee of the bluffs, and wait the fall of the wind.
As he approached the mouth of the Strait,
however, he changed his mind and determined
to try it.

When the vessel began to pitch heavily and
the hatches and skylights were closed, I knew
that we were in the Strait, and made haste to
get on my overcoat and get up into the pilot¬
house to enjoy the view of the waves. The view
proved to be far wilder and more exciting than
I expected. Indeed, I never before saw water
in so hearty a storm of hissing, blinding foam.
It was all one leaping, clashing, roaring mass of
white, mingling with the air by means of the
long hissing streamers dragged from the wave-
tops, and the biting scud. Our little vessel,
swept onward by the flood pouring into Ber¬
ing's Sea and by her machinery, was being
buffeted by the head-gale and the huge, white,
over-combing waves that made her reel and
tremble, though she stood it bravely and obeyed
the helm as if in calm water. After proceeding
about five or six miles into the heart of this
grand uproar, it seemed to grow yet wilder and
began to bid defiance to any farther headway
against it. At length, when we had nearly lost
our boats and [were] in danger of having our
decks swept, we turned and fled for refuge be¬
fore the gale. The giant waves, exulting in their

164

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

strength, seemed to be chasing us and threat¬
ening to swallow us at a gulp, but we finally
made our escape, and were perhaps in no great
danger farther than the risk of losing our boats
and having the decks swept.

After going back about ten miles, we dis¬
covered a good anchorage in fifteen fathoms of
water in the lee of a great bluff of lava about
two thousand feet high, and here we ride in
comfort while the blast drives past overhead.
If we do not get off to-morrow, I will go ashore
and see what I can learn.

Have learned already since the snow ceased
falhng that all the region hereabouts has been
glaciated just hke that thousand miles to the
eastward. All the sculptme shows this clearly.

How pleasant it seems to be able to walk
once more without holding on and to have your
plate lie still on the table!

It is clearing up. The mountains are seen in
groups rising back of one another, all pure
white. The sailors are catching codfish. There
are two waterfalls opposite our harbor.

Good-night to all. Oh, if I could touch my
baby and thee!

This has been a very grand day — snow,
waves, wind, mountains!

[John Mum]

165

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs, Muir

Unalaska Harbor

Tuesday, May 17, 1881

Deae Louie :

The gale having abated early this morning,
we left our anchorage on the south side of the
island and steamed round into the Strait to try
it again after our last evening’s defeat, and this
time we were successful, after a hard contest
with the tide, which flows here at a speed of ten
miles an hour.

The clouds lifted and the sun shone out
early this morning, revealing a host of moun¬
tains nobly sculptured and grouped and robed
in spotless white. Turn which way you would,
the mountains were seen towering into the
dark sky, some of them with streamers of
mealy snow wavering in the wind, a truly
glorious sight. The most interesting feature to
me was the flne, clear, telling, glacial advertise¬
ment displayed everywhere in the trends of the
numerous inlets and bays and valleys and
ridges, in the peculiar shell-shaped n4v6 am¬
phitheaters and in the rounded valley bottoms
and forms of the peaks and the cliff fronts
facing the sea. No clearer glacial inscriptions
are to be found in any mountain range, though
I had been led to believe that these islands were
all volcanic upheavals, scarce at all changed

166

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

since their emergence from the waves, but on
the contrary I have already discovered that
the amount of glacial degradation has been so
great as to cut the peninsula into islands. I
have already been repaid for the pains of the
journey.

My health is improving every day in this
bracing cold, and you will hardly recognize me
when I return. The summer will soon pass, and
we hope to be back to our homes by October
or November. . . . This is a beautiful harbor,
white mountains shutting it in all around —
white nearly to the water^s edge. . . .

I will write again ere we leave, and then you
will not hear again, probably, until near the
middle of June, when we expect to meet the
St. Paul belonging to the Alaska Commercial
Company at St. Michael. Then I will write and
you may receive my letter a month or two later.

Good-bye until to-morrow.

[John Muir]

To Mrs. Muir

Unalaska

Wednesday, May 18th, 1881

Dear Louie :

The Storm-King of the North is again up
and doing, rolling white, combing waves
through the jagged straits between this marvel-

167

JOHN MUIR

ous chain of islands, circling them about with
beaten, updashing foam, and piling yet more
and more snow on the clustering cloud- wrapped
peaks. But we are safe and snug in this land¬
locked haven enjoying the distant storm-roar
of wave and wind. I have just been on deck;
it is snowing still and the deep bass of the gale
is sounding on through the mountains. How
weird and wild and fascinating all this hearty
work of the storm is to me. I feel a strange
love of it all, as I gaze shivering up the dim
white slopes as through a veil darkly, becoming
fainter and fainter as the flakes thicken and at
length hide all the land.

Last evening I went ashore with the Cap¬
tain, and saw the chief men of the place and the
one white woman, and a good many of the
Aleuts. We were kindly and cordially enter¬
tained by the agent of the Alaska Commercial
Company, Mr. Greenbaum, and while seated
in his ^^eleganU’ parlor could hardly realize
that we were in so remote and cold and silent
a wilderness.

As we were seated at our ease discussing
Alaskan and Polar affairs, a knock came to the
door, and a tall, hoary, majestic old man slowly
entered, whom I at once took for the Russian
priest, but to whom I was introduced as Dr.
Holman. He shook hands with me very

168

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

heartily and said, ^^Mr. Muir, I am glad to see
you. I had the pleasure of knowing you in San
Francisco.’^ Then I recognized him as the dig¬
nified old gentleman that I first met three or
four years ago at the home of the Smiths at
San Rafael, and we had a pleasant evening
together. He has been in the employ of the
Alaska Commercial Company here for a year,
caring for the health of the Company's Aleuts.
His own health has been suffering the mean¬
while, and to-day I sent him half a dozen
bottles of the Doctor’s wine to revive him.
This notable liberality under the circumstances
was caused, first, by his having advised me
years ago to take good care of my steps on the
mountains; second, to get married; third, for
his pictures, drawn for me, of the bliss of having
children; fourth, for the sake of our mutual
friends; fifth, for his good looks and bad health;
and haff-dozenth, because fifteen or twenty
years ago on a dark night, while seeking one of
his patients in the Contra Costa hills, he called
at the house of Doctor Strentzel for directions
and was invited in and got a glass of good wine.
A half-dozen bottles for a half-dozen reasons!
^‘That’s consistent, isn’t it?” I mean to give a
bottle to a friend of the Captain who is sta¬
tioned at St. Michael, and save one bottle for
our first contact with the polar ice-pack, and

169

JOHN MUIR

one with which to celebrate the hour of our
return to home, friends, wives, bairns.

We had fresh-baked stuffed codfish for
breakfast, of which I ate heartily, stuffing and
all, though the latter was gray and soft and
much burdened with minced onions, and then
I held out my plate for a spoonful of opaque,
oleaginous gravy! This last paragraph is for
grandmother as a manifestation of heroic, all-
enduring, all-engulfing health.

We have not yet commenced to coal, so that
we will not get off for the North before Sunday.
There is a schooner here that will sail for Shoal-
water Bay, Oregon, in a few days, and by it I
will send four or five letters. The three or four
more that I intend writing ere we leave this
port I will give to the agent of the Company
here to be forwarded by the next opportunity
in case the first batch should be lost. Then
others will be sent from St. Michael by the
Company's steamer, and still others from the
Seal Islands and from points where we fall in
with any vessel homeward bound.

Good-night to all. I am multiplying letters
in case some be lost. A thousand kisses to my
child. This is the fifth letter from Unalaska.
Will write two more to be sent by other vessels.

[John Muir]

170

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP
To Mrs, Muir

Sunday afternoon, May 22, 1881

Dear Louie :

We left Unalaska this morning at four
o^clock and are now in Bering Sea on our way
to St. George and St. Paul Islands. . . . Next
Tuesday or Wednesday we expect to come in
sight of the ice, but hope to find open water,
along the west shore, that will enable us to get
through the Strait to Cape Serdze or there¬
abouts. In a month or so we expect to be at
St. Michael, where we will have a chance to
send more letters and still later by whalers.

You will, therefore, have no very long period
of darkness, though on my side I fear I shall
have to wait a long time for a single word, and
it is only by trusting in you to be cheerful and
busy for the sake of your health and for the
sake of our little love and all of us that I can
have any peace and rest throughout this trip,
however long or short. Now you must be sure
to sleep early to make up for waking during the
night, and occupy all the day with light work
and cheerful thoughts, and never brood and
dream of trouble, and I will come back with
the knowledge that I need and a fresh supply
of the wilderness in my health. I am already
quite well and eat with savage appetite what¬
soever is brought within reach.

171

JOHN MUIR

This morning I devoured half of a salmon
trout eighteen inches long, a slice of ham, half
a plateful of potatoes, two biscuits, and four or
five slices of bread, with coffee and something
else that I have forgotten, but which was cer¬
tainly buried in me and lost. For lunch, two
platefuls of soup, a heap of fat compound onion
hash, two pieces of toast, and three or four
slices of bread, with potatoes, and a big sweet
cake, and now at three o’clock I am very
hungry — a hunger that no amount of wave¬
tossing will abate. Furthermore, I look for¬
ward to fat seals fried and boiled, and to walrus
steaks and stews, and doughnuts fried in train
oil, and to all kinds of bears and fishy fowls
with eager longing. There! Is that enough,
grandmother? All my table whims are rapidly
passing into the sere and yellow leaf and falling
off.

I promise to comfort and sustain you beyond
your highest aspirations when I return and fall
three times a day on your table like a wolf on
the fold. You know those slippery yellow cus¬
tards — well, I eat those also !

You must not forget Sam Williams.^ And
now, my love, good-night. I hope you are
feeling strong-hearted. I wish I could write
anything, sense or nonsense, to cheer you up

^ Editor of the San Francisco Evening Bulletin.

172

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

and brighten the outlook into the North. I
will try to say one more line or two when we
reach the Islands to-morrow.

Love to all. Kiss Annie for me.

[John Muik]

To Mrs. Muir

Plover Bat, Siberia
June 1881

My Beloved Wife :

We leave this harbor to-morrow morning at
six o^clock, for St. Michael, and the northward.
The Corwin is in perfect condition, and since
the season promises to be a favorable one, we
hope to find the Jeannette and get home this
fall. I have not yet seen the American shore,
but hope to see it very thoroughly, as every¬
thing seems to work towards my objects. That
the Asiatic and American continents were one
a very short geological time ago is already clear
to me, though I shall probably obtain much
more available proof than I now have. This is
a grand fact. While the crystal glaciers were
creating Yosemite Valley, a thousand were
uniting here to make Bering Strait and Bering
Sea. The south side of the Aleutian chain of
islands was the boundary of the continent and
the ocean.

Since the Tom Pope came into the harbor,

173

JOHN MUIR

I have written five Bulletin’’ letters, which
are for you mostly, and therefore I need the
less to write any detailed narrative of the
cruise. She will sail at the same hour as we do,
and her Captain, Mr. Millard, who has been
many times in the Arctic both here and on the
Greenland side, has promised to make you a
visit, and will be able to give you much infor¬
mation.

If I could only get a line, one word, from you
to know that you were all well, I would be con¬
tent to await the end of the voyage with
patience and fortitude. But, my dear, it’s
terrible at times to have to endure for so long
a dark silence. We will not be likely to get a
word before September. No doubt you have
already received the six or seven letters that
I sent from Unalaska and St. Paul, also the
two or three Bulletin” letters from Unalaska.
Write [W.C.] Bartlett or the office for a dozen
copies of each, and save them for me.

We are drifting in the harbor among cakes
of ice about the size of the orchard, but they
can do us no harm. The great mountains
forming the walls are covered yet with snow,
except on a few bare spots near their bases, and
there is not a single tree. Scarce a hint of any
spring or summer have I seen since leaving
San Francisco and the orchard. I hope you will

174

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

see Mr. Millard. You must keep Annie Wanda
downstairs or she may fall; and now, my wife
and child, daughter and mother, I must bid
good-bye. Heaven bless you all! Send copies
of my Bulletin’^ letters to my mother, and
put this letter with my papers and notebooks.
You will get many other letters now that the
whalers are returning.

My heart aches, not to go home ere I have
done my work, but just to know that you are
well.

Your affectionate husband

John Muir

To Mrs. Muir

St. Michael, Alaska
June 21, 1881

Sunshine, dear Louie, sunshine all the day,
ripe and mellow sunshine, like that which feeds
the fruits and vines! It came to us just [three]
days ago when we were approaching this little
old-fashioned trading post at the mouth of the
Yukon River. . . .

On the day of our arrival from Plover Bay,
a little steamer came into the harbor from the
Upper Yukon, towing three large boats loaded
with traders, Indians, and furs — all the furs
they had gathered during the winter. We went
across to the storeroom of the Company to see

175

JOHN MUIR

them. A queer lot they were, whites and
Indians, as they unloaded their furs. It was
worth while to look at the furs too — big bun¬
dles of bear skins brown and black, wolf, fox,
beaver, marten, ermine, moose, wolverine,
wildcat — many of them with claws spread
and hair on end as if still alive and fighting for
their lives. Some of the Indian chiefs, the wild¬
est animals of all, and the more notable of the
traders, not at all wild save in dress, but rather
gentle and refined in manners, like village
parsons. They held us in long interesting talks
and gave us some valuable information con¬
cerning the broad wilds of the Yukon.

Yesterday I took a long walk of twelve or
fourteen miles over the tundra to a volcanic
cone and back, leaving the ship about twelve
in the forenoon and getting back at half-past
eight. I found a great number of flowers in full
bloom, and birds of many species building their
nests, and a capital view of the surrounding
country from the rim of an old crater, alto¬
gether making a delightful day, though a very
wearisome one on account of the difficult
walking.

The ground back of St. Michael stretches
away in broad brown levels of boggy tundra
promising fine walking, but proving about
as tedious and exhausting as possible. The

176

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

spongy covering [is] roughened with tussocks
of grass and sedge and creeping heathworts and
willows, among which the foot staggers about
and sinks and squints, seeking rest and finding
none, until far down between the rocking tus¬
socks. This covering is composed of a plush of
mosses, chiefly sphagnum, about eight inches
or a foot deep, resting on ice that never melts,
while about half of the surface of the moss
is covered with white, yellow, red, and gray
lichens, and the other half is planted more
or less with grasses, sedges, heathworts, and
creeping willows, and a flowering plant here
and there such as primula and purple-spiked
Pedicularis, Out in this grand solitude —
sohtary as far as man is concerned — we met a
great many of the Arctic grouse, ptarmigan,
cackling and screaming at our approach like
old laying hens; also plovers, snipes, curlews,
sandpipers, loons in ponds, and ducks and •
geese, and finches and wrens about the crater
and rocks at its base. . . .

And now good-bye again, and love to all,
wife, darling baby Anna, grandmother, and
grandfather.

[John Muir]

1177

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs, Muir

Between Plover Bay and
St. Lawrence Island,
July 2d, 1881

My Beloved Wife:

After leaving St. Michael, on the twenty-
second of June ... we went again into the
Arctic Ocean to Tapkan, twelve miles north¬
west of Cape Serdze, to seek the search party
that we left on the edge of the ice-pack oppo¬
site Koliuchin Island, and were so fortunate as
to find them there, having gone as far as the
condition of the ice seemed to them safe, and
after they had reached the fountain-head of all
the stories we had heard concerning the lost
whaler Vigilance and determined them to be in
the main true. At Cape Wankarem they found
three Chukchis who said that last year when
the ice was just beginning to grow, and when
the sun did not rise, they were out seal-hunting
three or four miles from shore when they saw a
broken ship in the drift ice, which they boarded
and found some dead men in the cabin and a
good many articles of one sort and another
which they took home and which they showed
to our party. This evidence reveals the fate of
at least one of the ships we are seeking.

Our party, when they saw us, came out to
the edge of the ice. which extended about three

178

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

miles from shore, and after a good deal of diffi¬
culty reached the steamer. The north wind
was blowing hard, sending huge black swells
and combing waves against the jagged, grind¬
ing edge of the pack with terrible uproar, mak¬
ing it impossible for us to reach them with a
boat. We succeeded, however, in throwing a
line to them, which they made fast to a skin
boat that they had pushed over the ice from
the shore, and, getting into it, they were dragged
over the stormy edge of ice waves and water
waves and soon got safely aboard, leaving the
tent, provisions, dogs, and sleds at the Indian
village, to be picked up some other time.

Then we sailed southward again to take our
interpreter Chukchi Joe to his home, which we
reached two hours ago. Now we are steering
for St. Michael again, intending to land for a
few hours on the north side of St. Lawrence
Island on the way. At St. Michael we shall
write our letters, which will be carried to San
Francisco by the Alaska Commercial Com¬
pany's steamer St. Paul, take on more provi¬
sions, and then sail north again along the Ameri¬
can shore, spending some time in Kotzebue
Sound, perhaps exploring some of the rivers
that flow into it, and then push on around
Point Barrow and out into the ocean north¬
ward as we can, our movements being always

179

JOHN MUIR

determined by the position and movements of
the ice-pack.

Before making a final effort in August or
September to reach Wrangell Land in search
of traces of the Jeannette, we will return yet
once more to St. Michael for coal and provi¬
sions which we have stored there in case we
should be compelled to pass a winter north of
Bering Strait. The season, however, is so
favorable that we have sanguine hopes of find¬
ing an open way to Wrangell Land and return¬
ing to our homes in October. The Jeannette
has not been seen, nor any of her crew, on the
Asiatic coast as far west as Cape Yaken, and I
have no hopes of the vessel ever escaping from
the ice; but her crew, in case they saved their
provisions, may yet be alive, though it is
strange that they did not come over the ice in
the spring. Possibly they may have reached
the American coast. If so, they will be found
this summer. Our vessel is in perfect condi¬
tion, and our Captain is very cautious and will
not take any considerable chances of being
caught in the North pack.

How long it seems since I left home, and yet
according to the almanac it will not be two
months until the day after to-morrow! I have
seen so much and gone so far, and the nightless
days are so strangely joined, it seems more

180

THE SECOND ALASK4 TRIP

than a year. And yet how short a time is the
busy month at home among the fruit and the
work! My wee lass will be big and bright now,
and by the time I can get her again in my arms
she will be afraid of my beard. I have a great
quantity of ivory dolls and toys — ducks,
bears, seals, walruses, etc. — for her to play
with, and some soft white furs to make a little
robe for her carriage. But it is a sore, hard
thing to be out of sight of her so long, and of
thee. Lassie, but still sorer and harder not to
hear. Perhaps not one word until I reach San
Francisco! You, however, will hear often. . . .

This is a lovely, cool, clear, bright day, and
the mountains along the coast of Asia stand in
glorious array, telling the grand old story of
their birth beneath the sculpturing ice of the
glacial period. But the snow still lingers here
and there down to the water’s edge, and a
little beyond the mouth of Bering Strait the
vast, mysterious ice-field of the North stretches
away beneath a dark, stormy sky for thousands
of miles. I landed on East Cape yesterday and
found unmistakable evidence of the passage
over it of a rigid ice-sheet from the North, a
fact which is exceedingly telling here. . . .

My health is so good now that I never notice
it. I climbed a mountain at East Cape yester¬
day, about three thousand feet high, a mile

181

JOHN MUIR

through snow knee-deep, and never felt fatigue,
my cheeks tingling in the north wind. ... I
have a great quantity of material in my note¬
books already, lots of sketches [of] glaciers,
mountains, Indians, Indian towns, etc. So you
may be sure I have been busy, and if I could
only hear a word now and then from that home
in the California hills I would be the happiest
and patientest man in all Hyperborea.

I am alone in the cabin; the engine is grind¬
ing away, making the lamp that is never lighted
now rattle, and the joints creak everywhere,
and the good Corwin is gliding swiftly over
smooth blue water about half way to St. Law¬
rence Island. And now I must to bed! But be¬
fore I go I reach my arms towards you, and
pray God to keep you all. Good-night.

[John Muie]

To Mrs, Muir

St. Michael, July Athy 1881

Dear Louie :

We arrived here this afternoon at three
o^clock and intend to stay about three days,
taking in coal and provisions, and then to push
off to the North. We intend to spend nearly a
month along the American shore, perhaps as
far north as Point Barrow, before we attempt

182

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

to go out into the Arctic Ocean among the ice,
for it is in August and September that the ice
is most open. Then, if, as we hope from the
favorableness of the season, we succeed in
reaching Wrangell Land to search for traces of
the Jeannette, or should find any sure tidings
of her, we will be back in sunny, iceless Cali¬
fornia about the end of October, in grape-time.
Otherwise we will probably return to St.
Michael and take on a fresh supply of coal and
nine months’ provisions, and go north again
prepared to winter in case we should get caught
in the north of Bering Strait.

A few miles to the north of Plover Bay some
thirteen or fourteen canoe-loads of natives
came out to trade; more than a hundred of
them were aboard at once, making a very
lively picture. When we proceeded on our way,
they allowed us to tow them for a mile or two
in order to take advantage of the northerly
current in going back to their village. They
were dragged along, five or six canoes on each
side, making the Corwin look hke a mother
field-mouse with a big family hanging to her
teats, one of the first country sights that filled
me with astonishment when a boy.

In coming here I had very fine views of St.
Lawrence Island from the north side, showing
the trend of the ice-sheet very plainly, much to

183

JOHN MUIR

my delight. The middle of the island is crowded
with volcanic cones, mostly post-glacial, and
therefore regular in form and but little wasted,
and I counted upwards of fifty from one point
of view. Just in front of this volcanic portion
on the coast there is a dead Esquimo village
where we landed and found that every soul of
the population had died two years ago of
starvation. More than two hundred skeletons
were seen lying about like rubbish, in one hut
thirty, most of them in bed. Mr. E. W. Nelson,
a zealous collector for the Smithsonian Institu¬
tion, gathered about one hundred skulls as
specimens, throwing them together in heaps to
take on board, just as when a boy in Wisconsin
I used to gather pumpkins in the fall after the
corn was shocked. The boxfuls on deck looked
just about as unlike a cargo of cherries as
possible, but I will not oppress you with grim
details.

Some of the men brought off guns, axes,
spears, etc., from the abandoned huts, and I
found a little box of child^s playthings which
might please Anna Wanda, but which, I sup¬
pose, you will not let into the house. Well, I
have lots of others that I bought, and when
last here I engaged an Indian to make her a
little fur suit, which I hope is ready so that I
can send it down by the St. Paul. I hope it may

184

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

fit her. I wish she were old enough to read the
stories that I should like to write her.

Love to all. Good-night.

Ever yours

John Muir

To Mrs, Muir

St. Michael, July 9th, 1881

My Dear Wife:

We did not get away last evening, as we ex¬
pected, on account of the change in plans — as
to taking all our winter stores on board, instead
of leaving them until another visit in Sep¬
tember. It is barely possible we might get
caught off Point Barrow or on Wrangell [Land]
by movements in the ice-pack that never can
be anticipated. Therefore we will be more com¬
fortable with abundance of bread about us.
In the matter of coal, there is a mine on the
north coast where some can be obtained in
case of need, and also plenty of driftwood.

Our cruise, notwithstanding we have already
made two trips into a portion of the Arctic
usually blocked most of the summer, we con¬
sider is just really beginning. For we have not
yet made any attempt to get to the packed
region about Herald Island and Wrangell
Land. Perhaps not once in twenty years would
it be possible to get a ship alongside the shores

185

JOHN MUIR

of Wrangell Land, although its southern point
is about nine degrees south of points attained
on the eastern side of the continent. To find
the ocean ice thirty or forty feet thick away
from its mysterious shores seems to be about as
hopeless as to find a moimtain glacier out of its
canon. Still, this has been so remarkably open
and mild a winter, and so many north gales
have been blowing this spring, [gales] calcu¬
lated to break up the huge packs and grind the
cakes and blocks against one another, that we
have sanguine hopes of accomplishing all that
we are expected to do and get home by the end
of October. If I can see as much of the Amer¬
ican coast as I have of the Asiatic, I will be
satisfied, and should the weather be as favor¬
able I certainly shall. . . .

We may, possibly, be home ere you receive
any more [letters]. If not, think of me, dear, as
happily at work with no other pain than the
pain of separation from you and my wee lass.
I have many times been weighing chances as
to whether you have sent letters by the Mary-
and-Helen, now called the Rodgers,’’ which
was to sail about the middle of June. She is a
slow sailer, and has to go far out of her course
by Petropavlovskii, the capital of Kamchatka,
for dogs, and will not be through the Strait
before the end of the season nearly. Yet a

186

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

letter by her is my only hope for hearing from
you this season.

How warm and bland the weather is here,
60° in the shade, and how fine a crop of grass
and flowers is growing up along the shores and
back on the spongy tundra! The Captain says
I can have a few hours on shore this afternoon.
I mean to go across the bay three miles to a
part of the tundra I have not yet seen. I shall
at least find a lot of new flowers and see some
of the birds. Once more, good-bye. I send
Anna’s parka by the St. Paul. Give my love to
Sam Wilhams. You must not forget him.

[John Mum]

A month and three days after the date of the
preceding letter the Corwin succeeded in mak¬
ing a landing on Wrangell Land. From some
unpublished notes of Muir under the heading
^^Our New Arctic Territory” we excerpt the
following account of the event:

Next morning [August 12th] the fog lifted, and
we were delighted to see that though there was now
about eight miles of ice separating us from the shore,
it was less closely packed, and the Corwin made her
way through it without great difficulty until within
two miles of the shore, where the craggy berg-
blocks were found to be extremely hard and wedged
closely together. But a patch of open water near
the beach, now plainly in sight, encouraged a con-

187

JOHN MUm

tinuance of the struggle, and with a full head of
steam on, the barrier was forced. By 10 o’clock
A.M. our little ship was riding at anchor less than a
cable’s length from the beach, opposite the mouth
of a river.

This landing point proved to be in latitude 71°
4', longitude 177° 40' 30" W., near the East Cape.
After taking formal possession of the country, one
party examined the level beach about the mouth of
the river, and the left bank for a mile or two, and a
hillside that slopes gently down to the river, while
another party of officers, after building a cairn, de¬
positing records in it, and setting the flag on a con¬
spicuous point of the bluff facing the ocean, pro¬
ceeded northwestward along the brow of the short
bluff to a marked headland, a distance of three or
four miles, searching attentively for traces of the
Jeannette expedition and of any native inhabitants
that might chance to be in the country. Then all
were hurriedly recalled and a way was forced to
open water through ten miles of drift ice which
began to close upon us.

To Mrs. Muir
Point Baerow, August l^th, 1881
My Beloved Wife:

Heaven only knows my joy this night in
hearing that you were well. Old as the letter is
and great as the number of days and nights
that have passed since your love was written, it
yet seems as if I had once more been upstairs
and held you and Wanda in my arms. Ah, you

188

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

little know the long icy days, so strangely
nightless, that I have longed and longed for
one word from you. The dangers, great as they
were, while groping and grinding among the
vast immeasurable ice-fields about that mys¬
terious Wrangell Land would have seemed as
nothing before I knew you. But most of the
special dangers are past, and I have grand news
for you, my love, for we have succeeded in
landing on that strange ice-girt country and
our work is nearly all done and I am coming
home by the middle of October. No thought
of wintering now and attempting to cross the
frozen ocean from Siberia. We will take no
more risks. All is well with our stanch little
ship. She is scarce at all injured by the pound¬
ing and grinding she has undergone, and sailing
home seems nothing more than crossing San
Francisco Bay. We have added a large ter¬
ritory [Wrangell Land] to the domain of the
United States and amassed a grand lot of
knowledge of one sort and another.

Now we sail from here to-morrow for Cape
Lisburne, or, if stormy, to Plover Bay, to coal
and repair our rudder, which is a little weak.
Thence we will go again around the margin of
the main polar pack about Wrangell Land, but
not into it, and possibly discover a clear way
to land upon it again and obtain more of its

189

JOHN MUIR

geography; then leave the Arctic about the
10th of September, call at St. Michael, at Una-
laska, and then straight home.

I shall not write at length now, as this is to
go down by the Legal Tender, which sails in a
few days and expects to reach San Francisco
by the 20th of September, but we may reach
home nearly as soon as she. I have to dash off
a letter for the Bulletin’’ to-night, though I
ought to go to bed. Not a word of it is yet
written.

We came poking and feeling our way along
this icy shore a few hours ago through the fog,
little thinking that a letter from you was just
ahead. Then the fog lifted, and we saw four
whalers at anchor and a strange vessel. When
the Captain of the Belvidere shouted, Letters
for you. Captain, by the Legal Tender,” which
was the strange vessel, our hearts leaped, and
a boat was speedily sent alongside. I got the
letter package and handed them round, and
yours, love, was the very last in the package,
and I dreaded there was none. The Rodgers
had not yet been heard from. One of the
whale ships was caught here and crushed in
the ice and sank in twenty minutes a month
ago.

Good-bye, love. I shall soon be home. Love
to all. My wee lass-love — she seems already

190

THE SECOND ALASKA TRIP

in my arms. Not in dreams this time! From
father and husband and lover.

John Muir

Muir^s collection of plants, gathered in the
Arctic lands touched by the Corwin, was nat¬
urally of uncommon interest to botanists.
Asa Gray returned from a European trip in
November, and in response to an inquiry from
Muir at once wrote him to send on his Arctic
plants for determination. Those from Herald
Island and Wrangell Land, represented by a
duphcate set in the Gray Flerbarium at Har¬
vard, are still the only collections known to
science from those regions. In determining
the plants. Gray found among them a new
species of erigeron, and in reporting it to the
American Academy of Arts and Sciences
named it Erigeron Muirii in honor of its dis¬
coverer. Muir found it in July at Cape
Thompson on the Arctic shore of Alaska.^

This cruise in the Arctic Ocean, as it turned
out, was to be the last of his big expeditions
for some time. Domestic cares and joys, and
the development of the fruit ranch, absorbed
his attention more and more. The old freedom

^ A complete list of his various collections and of his glacial
observations will be found in the appendix to The Cruise of
the Corwin (1917).

191

JOHN MUIR

was gone, but the following paragraph, from a
letter written to Mrs. John Bid well, of Rancho
Chico, on January 2, 1882, suggests that he had
found a satisfying substitute for the inde¬
pendence of earlier years:

I have been anxious to run up to Chico in the old
free way to tell you about the majestic icy facts
that I found last summer in the Lord’s Arctic pal¬
aces, but, as you can readily guess, it is not now so
easy a matter to wing hither and thither like a bird,
for here is a wife and a baby and a home, together
with the old press of field studies and literary work,
which I by no means intend to lose sight of even
in the bright bewitching smiles of my wee bonnie
lassie. Speaking of brightness, I have been busy, for
a week or two just past, letting more light into the
house by means of dormer windows, and in making
two more open brick fireplaces. Dormer-windows,
open wood-fires, and perfectly happy babies make
any home glow with warm sunny brightness and
bring out the best that there is in us.

CHAPTER XV

WINNING A COMPETENCE
1881-1891

Theee was an interval of ten years during
which Mr. Muir devoted himself with great
energy and success to the development of the
Alhambra fruit ranch. According to a fictitious
story, still encountered in some quarters, he
was penniless at the time of his marriage. On
the contrary, he had several thousand dollars
at interest and, according to a fragment of un¬
completed memoirs, was receiving from one
hundred to two hundred and fifty dollars for
each of his magazine articles. After my first
article,’’ he wrote, was greatly surprised to
find that everything else I offered was ac¬
cepted and paid for. That I could earn money
simply with written ’ words seemed very
strange.”

In the same memoirs Muir generalizes as
follows on the decade between 1881 and 1891 :

About a year before starting on the Arctic expedi¬
tion I was married to Louie Strentzel, and for ten
years I was engaged in fruit-raising in the Alhambra
Valley, near Martinez, clearing land, planting vine-

193

JOHN MUIR

yards and orchards, and selling the fruit, until I had
more money than I thought I would ever need for
my family or for all expenses of travel and study,
however far or however long continued. But this
farm work never seriously interrupted my studies.
Every spring when the snow on the mountains had
melted, until the approach of winter, my explora¬
tions were pushed farther and farther. Only in the
early autumn, when the table grapes were gathered,
and in winter and early spring, when the vineyards
and orchards were pruned and cultivated, was my
personal supervision given to the work. After these
ten years I sold part of the farm and leased the
balance, so as to devote the rest of my life, as care¬
free as possible, to travel and study. Thus, in 1891,
I was again free from the farm and all bread¬
winning cares.

In the extant correspondence of the early
eighties one gets only indirect and fugitive
hints of Muir’s activities. Worthy of notice is
the fact that during July, 1884, he took his
wife to the Yosemite Valley, and their joint
letters to the grandparents and the little daugh¬
ter, left at home, afford amusing glimpses of a
husband who has never played courier to a wife
and of a wife who mistakes trout for catfish
and suspects a bear behind every bush. It
should be added that in Mrs. Muir’s letters
there is a note of concern for her husband’s
health, which had begun to suffer under the
exacting cares of the ranch. ^‘1 am anxious

194

WINNING A COMPETENCE

about John/’ she writes. '^The journey was
hard for him, and he looks thin and pale and
tired. He must not leave the mountains until
he is well and strong again.”

The arrival, in 1886, of a second daughter,
believed to have been of frail health during her
infant years, brought an increase of parental
cares and anchored the family to the ranch
more closely than ever. Mrs. Muir was nat¬
urally disinclined to travel, and both of them
were full of misgivings regarding anything that
might imperil the safety of the children. Under
the circumstances Muir became more and more
absorbed in the management of the ranch and
care for his own.

Meanwhile time was working changes in the
Wisconsin family circle from which John had
gone out in 1867. Nearly eighteen years had
gone by since he had seen his father and
mother, brothers and sisters. His brother-in-
law David Galloway died suddenly in Septem¬
ber, 1884, his father and mother were growing
infirm, the wife of his brother David was smit¬
ten with an incurable malady, and death was
thinning the ranks of the friends of his youth.
In view of these circumstances he began to feel
more and more strongly the desire to revisit the
scenes and friends of his boyhood. mean to
see you all some time this happy new year

195

JOHN MUIR

[1885]/^ he wrote to his brother David at the
close of December. Seeing you after so long
a journey in earth^s wildest wildernesses will
make [the experience] indeed new to me. I
could not come now without leaving the ranch
to go to wreck, a score of workmen without a
head, and no head to be found, though I have
looked long for a foreman. Next spring after
the grapes are pruned and sulphured, etc., and
the cherry crop sold, I mean to pay off all but a
half-dozen or so and leave things to take their
course for a month or two. Can’t you send me
some good steady fellow to learn this fruit
business and take some of the personal super¬
vision off my shoulders? Such a person could
be sure of a job as long as he liked.”

It seems worth while to record, in this con¬
nection, an incident of dramatic and pathetic
interest which occurred during the summer of
1885, just before Muir made his first return trip
to his old Wisconsin home. Helen Hunt Jackson
had come to San Francisco in June after months
of illness, caused, as she thought, by defective
sanitation in a Los Angeles boarding-house.
Having recently been appointed Special Com¬
missioner to inquire into the conditions sur¬
rounding the Mission Indians of California,
she gave herself with devotion and ability to
the righting of their wrongs. Among her par-

196

WINNING A COMPETENCE

ticular friends was Mrs. Carr, at whose subur¬
ban Pasadena home, ^^Carmelita,’^ she had
written a part of her Indian story ^^Eamona.’’
It was quite natural, therefore, that she should
apply to John Muir for help in planning a con¬
valescent’s itinerary in the mountains. ‘^I
know with the certainty of instinct,” she
wrote, ‘Hhat nothing except three months out
of doors night and day will get this poison out
of my veins. The doctors say that in six weeks
I may be strong enough to be laid on a bed in a
wagon and drawn about.”

It is easy to imagine the surprise and amuse¬
ment of Muir when he read her statement of
the conditions and equipment required for her
comfort. She wished to be among trees where
it was moist and cool, being unable to endure
heat. She wanted to keep moving, but the
altitudinal range must not exceed four thou¬
sand feet, and, above all, she must not get be¬
yond easy reach of express and post-offices.
Her outfit was to consist of eight horses, an
ambulance, two camp-wagons for tents, and a
phaeton buggy. The attendants were to com¬
prise four servants, a maid, and a doctor.

“Now do you know any good itinerary,”
she inquired, “for such a cumbrous caravan as
this? How you would scorn such lumbering
methods! I am too ill to wish any other. I

197

JOHN MUIR

shall do this as a gamester throws his last
card!^^ In conclusion she stated that she had
always cherished the hope of seeing him some
time. ^^I believe/^ she adds, ^‘I know every
word you have written. I never wished myself
a man but once. That was when I read how it
seemed to be rocked in the top of a pine tree in
a gale!^^

Muir’s reply to this request, according to
the draft of a letter found among his papers,
was as follows:

To Helen Hunt Jackson

Martinez, June lUh, 1885
My dear Mrs. Jackson:

Your letter of June 8th has shown me how
sick you are, but also that your good angel is
guiding you to the mountains, and therefore I
feel sure that you will soon be well again.

When I came to California from the swamps
of Florida, full of malarial poison, I crawled up
the mountains over the snow into the blessed
woods about Yosemite Valley, and the ex¬
quisite pleasure of convalescence and exuberant
rebound to perfect health that came to me at
once seem still as fresh and vivid after all these
years as if enjoyed but yesterday.

The conditions you lay down for your itin¬
erary seem to me desperately forbidding. No

198

WINNING A COMPETENCE

path accessible to your compound congrega¬
tion can be traced across the range, maintain¬
ing anything like an elevation of four thousand
feet, to say nothing of coolness and moisture,
while along the range the topography is still
less com^pliant to your plans. When I was trac¬
ing the Sequoia belt from the Calaveras to the
Kern River I was compelled to make a descent
of nine thousand feet in one continuous swoop
in crossing the Kings River Valley, while the
ups and downs from ridge to ridge throughout
the whole course averaged nearly five thousand
feet.

No considerable portion of the middle and
southern Sierra is cool and moist at four thou¬
sand feet during late summer, for there you
are only on the open margin of the main forest
zone, which is sifted during the day by the dry
warm winds that blow across the San Joaquin
plains and foothills, though the night winds
from the summit of the range make the nights
delightfully cool and refreshing.

The northern Sierra is considerably cooler
and moister at the same heights. From the end
of the Oregon Railroad beyond Redding you
might work up by a gentle grade of fifty miles
or so to Strawberry Valley where the elevation
is four thousand feet. There is abundance of
everything, civilized as well as wild, and from

199

JOHN MUIR

thence circle away all summer around Mount
Shasta where the circumference is about one
hundred miles, and only a small portion of your
way would lie much above or below the re¬
quired elevation, and only the north side, in
Shasta Valley, would you find rather dry and
warm, perhaps, while you would reach an ex¬
press station at every round or a good mes¬
senger could find you in a day from the station
at any point in your orbit. And think how
glorious a center you would have! — so glorious
and inspiring that I would gladly revolve
there, weary, afoot, and alone for all eter¬
nity.

The Kings River yosemite would be a de¬
lightful summer den for you, abounding in the
best the mountains have to give. Its elevation
is about five thousand feet, length nine miles,
and it is reached by way of Visalia and Hyde^s
Mills among the Sequoias of the Kaweah, but
not quite accessible to your wheels and pans, I
fear. Have you considered the redwood region
of the Coast Range about Mendocino? There
you would find coolness, moist air, and spicy
woods at a moderate elevation.

If an elevation of six thousand feet were con¬
sidered admissible, I would advise your going
on direct to Truckee by rail, rather than to
Dutch Flat, where the climate may be found

200

WINNING A COMPETENCE

too dry and hot. From Truckee by easy stages
to Tahoe City and thence around the Lake and
over the Lake all summer. This, as you must
know, is a delightful region — cool and moist
and leafy, with abundance of food and express
stations, etc.

What an outfit you are to have — terrible as
an army with banners ! I scarce dare think of it.
What will my poor Douglas squirrels say at the
sight? They used to frisk across my feet, but
I had only two feet, which seemed too many
for the topography in some places, while you
have a hundred, besides wooden spokes and
spooks. Under ordinary circumstances they
would probably frighten the maid and stare
the doctor out of countenance, but every tail
will be turned in haste and hidden at the bot¬
tom of the deepest knot-holes. And what shuf¬
fling and haste there will be in the chaparral
when the bears are getting away! Even the
winds might hold their breath, I fancy, pause
and die,^’ and the great pines groan aghast at
the oncoming of so many shining cans and
carriages and strange colors.

But go to the mountains where and how you
will, you soon will be free from the effects of
this confusion, and God^s sky will bend down
about you as if made for you alone, and the
pines will spread their healing arms above you

201

JOHN MUIR

and bless you and make you well again, and sr
delight the heart of

John Muir

nothing else comes of my camping air-
castle,’^ she wrote from 1600 Taylor Street,
San Francisco, two days after receiving Muir’s
answer, ^‘1 have at least one pleasure from it —
your kind and delightful letter. I have read it
so many times I half know it. I wish Mrs. Carr
were here that I might triumph over her. She
wrote me that I might as well ask one of the
angels of heaven as John Muir, ^so entirely out
of his line’ was the thing I proposed to do. I
knew better, however, and I was right. You
are the only man in California who could tell
me just what I needed to know about ranges
of climate, dryness, heat, etc., also roads.”

But the author of Ramona” was never to
have an opportunity to play her last card, for
she was beyond even the healing of the moun¬
tains if she could have reached them. Indeed,
one detects a presentiment of her doom in the
closing lines of her letter to the man who had
fired her imagination with his contagious faith
in the restorative powers of nature. ^^If you
could see me,” she writes, ^^you would only
wonder that I have courage to even dream of
such an expedition. I am not at all sure it is

202

WINNING A COMPETENCE

not of the madness which the gods are said
to send on those whom they wish to destroy.
They tell me Martinez is only twenty miles
away: do you never come into town? The re¬
gret I should weakly feel at having you see the
^ remains^ (ghastly but inimitable word) of me
would, I think, be small in comparison with the
pleasure I should feel in seeing you. I am much
too weak to see strangers — but it is long since
you were a stranger.’’ Whether the state of
his own health had permitted him to call on
H.,” as she was known among her friends,
before he started East, in August, to see his
parents, is not clear. Certain it is that by a
singular coincidence he was ringing her door¬
bell almost at the moment when the brave
spirit of this noble friend of the Indians was
taking flight. “Mrs. Jackson may have gone
away somewhere,” he remarked in writing to
his wife the next day: “could get no response
to my ringing — blinds down.”

The immediate occasion of his decision to go
East is best told in some further pages from
unpublished memoirs under the title of “Mys¬
terious Things.” Though Muir’s boyhood was
passed in communities where spooks, and
ghosts, and clairvoyance were firmly believed
in, he was as a man singularly free from faith
in superstitions of this kind. But there were

203

JOHN MUIR

several occasions when he acted upon sudden
and mysterious impulses for which he knew
no explanation, and which he contents himself
simply to record. One of these relates to the
final illness and death of his father and is told
as follows:

In the year 1885, when father was living with his
youngest daughter in Kansas City, another daugh¬
ter, who was there on a visit, wrote me that father
was not feeling as well as usual on account of not
being able to take sufficient exercise. Eight or ten
years before this, when he was about seventy years
of age, he fell on an icy pavement and broke his leg
at the hip joint, a difficult break to heal at any
time, but in old age particularly so. The bone never
knitted, and he had to go on crutches the balance
of his life.

One morning, a month or two after receiving this
word from my sister, I suddenly laid down my pen
and said to my wife: “I am going East, because
somehow I feel this morning that if I don’t go now
I won’t see father again.” At this time I had not
seen him for eighteen years. Accordingly I went
on East, but, instead of going direct to Kansas
City, I first went to Portage, where one of my
brothers and my mother were living.

As soon as I arrived in Portage, I asked mother
whether she thought she was able to take the jour¬
ney to Kansas City to see father, for I felt pretty
sure that if she didn’t go now she wouldn’t see him
again alive. I said the same to my brother David.
^‘Come on, David: if you don’t go to see father now,

204

WINNING A COMPETENCE

I think you will never see him again/^ He seemed
greatly surprised and said: “What has put that in
your head? Although he is compelled to go around
on crutches, he is, so far as I have heard, in ordinary
health/^ I told him that I had no definite news, but
somehow felt that we should all make haste to cheer
and comfort him and bid him a last good-bye. For
this purpose I had come to gather our scattered
family together. Mother, whose health had long
been very frail, said she felt it would be impossible
for her to stand the journey. David spoke of his
business, but I bought him a railway ticket and
compelled him to go.

On the way out to Kansas City I stopped at
Lincoln, Nebraska, where my other brother, Daniel,
a practicing physician, was hving. I said, “Dan,
come on to Kansas City and see father.^^ “Why?”
he asked. “Because if you don’t see him now, you
never will see him again. I think father will leave
us in a few days.” “What makes you think so?”
said he; “I have not heard anything in particular.”
I said, “Well, I just kind of feel it. I have no
reason.” “I cannot very well leave my patients,
and I don’t see any necessity for the journey.” I
said, “Surely you can turn over your patients to
some brother physician. You will not probably have
to be away more than four or five days, or a week,
until after the funeral.” He said, “You seem to talk
as though you knew everything about it.” I said,
“I don’t know anything about it, but I have that
feeling — that presentiment, if you like — nothing
more.” I then bought him a ticket and said, “Now
let’s go: we have no time to lose.” Then I sent the
same word to two sisters living in Kearney and

205

JOHN MUIR

Crete, Nebraska, who arrived about as soon as we
did.

Thus seven of the eight in our family assembled
around father for the first time in more than twenty
years. Father showed no sign of any particular ill¬
ness, but simply was confined to his bed and spent
his time reading the Bible. We had three or four
precious days with him before the last farewell. He
died just after we had had time to renew our ac¬
quaintance with him and make him a cheering,
comforting visit. And after the last sad rites were
over, we all scattered again to our widely separated
homes.

The reader who recalls, from the opening
chapters of this work, the paternal severity
which embittered for John Muir the memory
of the youthful years he spent on the farm, will
be interested in a few additional details of this
meeting of father and son after eighteen years.
In spite of the causes which had estranged
them so long ago, John had never withheld his
admiration for the nobler traits of his father^s
character, and he apparently cherished the
hope that some day he might be able to sit
down quietly with him and talk it all out. It
seemed futile to do this so long as the old man
was actively engaged in evangelistic work,
which shut out from calm consideration any¬
thing that seemed to him to have been or to be
an embarrassment of his calling. Now that he

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WINNING A COMPETENCE

was laid low, John deemed that the proper
time had arrived, but for this purpose he had
come too late.

‘‘Father is very feeble and helpless, he
wrote to his wife from the aged man^s bedside.
“He does not know me, and I am very sorry.
He looks at me and takes my hand and says,
‘Is this my dear John?’ and then sinks away
on the pillow, exhausted, without being able
to understand the answer. This morning when
I went to see him and was talking broad Scotch
to him, hoping to stir some of the old memories
of Scotland before we came here, he said, ‘I
don’t know much aboot it noo,’ and then added,
‘You’re a Scotchman, aren’t you?’ When I
would repeat that I w;as his son John that went
to California long ago and came back to see
him, he would start and raise his head a little
and gaze fixedly at me and say, ‘Oh, yes, my
dear wanderer,’ and then lose all memory
again. . . . I’m sorry I could not have been
here two or three months earlier, though I
suppose all may be as well, as it is.”

A few months earlier, when Daniel Muir was
still in full possession of his faculties, he had
particularly mentioned to his daughter Joanna
some of the cruel things he had said and done
to his “poor wandering son John.” This wan¬
derer, crossing the mountains and the plains

207

JOHN MUIR

in response to a mysterious summons, had
gathered the scattered members of the former
Fountain Lake home to his dying father^s bed¬
side, and, as the following letter shows, was
keeping solitary vigil there, when the hour of
dissolution came.

To Mrs. Muir

803 Wabash Avenue
Kansas City, Missouri
October Qth, 1885

Dear Louie :

You will know ere this that the end has come
and father is at rest. He passed away in a full
summer day evening peace, and with that peace
beautifully expressed, and remaining on his
countenance as he lies now, pure and clean like
snow, on the bed that has borne him so long.

Last evening David and I made everybody
go to bed and arranged with each other to keep
watch through the night, promising the girls
to give warning in time should the end draw
near while they slept. David retired in an ad¬
joining room at ten o’clock, while I watched
alone, he to be called to take my place at two
or three in the morning, should no marked
change take place before that time.

About eleven o’clock his breathing became
calm and slow, and his arms, which had been

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WINNING A COMPETENCE

moved in a restless way at times, at length
were folded on his breast. About twelve o’clock
his breathing was still calmer, and slower, and
his brow and lips were slightly cold and his eyes
grew dim. At twelve-fifteen I called David
and we decided to call up the girls, Mary,
Anna, and Joanna, but they were so worn out
with watching that we delayed a few minutes
longer, and it was not until about one minute
before the last breath that all were gathered
together to kiss our weary affectionate father
a last good-bye, as he passed away into the
better land of light.

Few lives that I know were more restless and
eventful than his — few more toilsome and full
of enthusiastic endeavor onward towards light
and truth and eternal love through the midst
of the devils of terrestrial strife and darkness
and faithless misunderstanding that well-nigh
overpowered him at times and made bitter
burdens for us all to bear.

But his last years as he lay broken in body
and silent were full of calm divine light, and he
oftentimes spoke to Joanna of the cruel mis¬
takes he had made in his relations towards his
children, and spoke particularly of me, wonder¬
ing how I had borne my burdens so well and
patiently, and warned Joanna to be watchful
to govern her children by love alone. . . .

209

JOHN MUIR

Seven of the eight children will surely be
present [at the funeral]. We have also sent
telegrams to mother and Sarah, though I fear
neither will be able to endure the fatigues of
the journey. ... In case they should try to
be present, David or I would meet them at
Chicago. Then the entire family would be
gathered once more, and how gladly we would
bring that about! for in all our devious ways
and wanderings we have loved one another.

In any case, we soon will be scattered again,
and again gathered together. In a few days the
snow will be falling on father’s grave and one
by one we will join him in his last rest, all our
separating wanderings done forever.

Love to all, Wanda, Grandma, and Grandpa.

Ever yours, Louie

John Muib

To Mrs, Muir

Portage City, Wisconsin
September lOth^ 1885

Deak Louie :

I have just returned from a visit to the old
people and old places about our first home in
America, ten or twelve miles to the north of
this place, and am glad to hear from you at
last. Your two letters dated August 23d and
28th and the Doctor’s of September 1st have

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WINNING A COMPETENCE

just been received, one of them having been
forwarded from the Yellowstone, making
altogether four letters from home besides
Wanda^s neat little notes which read and look
equally well whichever side is uppermost. Now
.T feel better, for I had begun to despair of hear¬
ing from you at all, and the weeks since leaving
home, having been crowded with novel scenes
and events, seemed about as long as years.

As for the old freedom I used to enjoy in the
wilderness, that, like youth and its enthusiasms,
is evidently a thing of the past, though I feel
that I could still do some good scientific work
if the necessary leisure could be secured. Your
letters and the Doctor^s cheer and reassure me,
as I felt that I was staying away too long and
leaving my burdens for others to carry who had
enough of their own, and though you encourage
me to prolong my stay and reap all the benefit
I can in the way of health and pleasure and
knowledge, I cannot shut my eyes to the fact
that the main vintage will soon be on and re¬
quire my presence, to say nothing of your un¬
certain state of health. Therefore I mean to
begin the return journey next Saturday morn¬
ing by way of Chicago and Kansas City. . . .

Still another of your letters has just arrived,
dated August 31st, by which I learn that
Wanda is quite well and grandma getting

211

JOHN MUIR

stronger, while you are not well as you should
be. I have tried to get you conscious of the
necessity of the utmost care of your health —
especially at present — and again remind you
of it.

The Yellowstone period was, as you say, far
too short, and it required bitter resolution to
leave all. The trip, however, as a whole has
been far from fruitless in any direction. I have
gained telling glimpses of the Continent from
the car windows, and have seen most of the old
friends and neighbors of boyhood times, who
without exception were almost oppressively
kind, while a two weeks^ visit with mother and
the family is a great satisfaction to us all, how¬
ever much we might wish it extended. . . .

I saw nearly all of the old neighbors, the
young folk, of course, grown out of memory
and unrecognizable; but most of the old I found
but little changed by the eighteen years since
last I saw them, and the warmth of my wel¬
come was in most instances excruciating.
William Duncan, the old Scotch stone-mason
who loaned me books when I was little and al¬
ways declared that Johnnie Moor will mak a
name for himsel some day,’’ I found hale and
hearty, eighty-one years of age, and not a gray
hair in his curly, bushy locks — erect, firm of
step, voice firm with a clear calm ring to it,

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WINNING A COMPETENCE

memory as good as ever apparently, and his
interest in all the current news of the world as
fresh and as far-reaching. I stopped overnight
with [him] and talked till midnight.

We were four days in making the round and
had to make desperate efforts to get away.
We climbed the Observatory that used to be
the great cloud-capped mountain of our child’s
imagination, but it dwindled now to a mere
hill two hundred and fifty feet high, half the
height of that vineyard hill opposite the house.
The porphyry outcrop on the summit is very
hard, and I was greatly interested in finding it .
grooved and polished by the ice-sheet. I began
to get an appetite and feel quite well. Tell
Wanda I’ll write her a letter soon. Everybody
out in the country seemed disappointed, not
seeing you also. Love to all.

Ever yours John Muie

Early in 1887 a letter from Janet Moores,
one of the children who had visited Muir in his
dark-room in Indianapolis many years ago,
brought him news that she had arrived in Oak- ,
land. She was the daughter of his friend Mrs.
Julia Merrill Moores, and a sister of Merrill
Moores, who spent a season with John in Yose-
mite and in 1915 was elected a member of
Congress from Indiana.

213

JOHN MUIR

To Miss Janet Douglass Moores

Martinez, California
February 23, 1887

My dear Friend Janet:

Have you really turned into a woman, and
have you really come to California, the land of
the sun, and Yosemite and a’ that, through the
whirl of all these years! Seas between us braid
hae roared, my lassie, sin’ the auld lang syne,
and many a storm has roared over broad moun¬
tains and plains since last we parted. Yet,
however, we are but little changed in all that
signifies, saved from many dangers that we
know, and from many more that we never shall
know — kept alive and well by a thousand,
thousand miracles!

Twenty years! How long and how short a
time that seems to-day! How many times the
seas have ebbed and flowed with their white
breaking waves around the edges of the conti¬
nents and islands in this score of years, how
many times the sky has been light and dark,
and the ground between us been shining with
rain, and sun, and snow : and how many times
the flowers have bloomed, but for a’ that and a’
that you seem just the same to me, and time
and space and events hide you less than the
thinnest veil. Marvelous indeed is the per¬
manence of the impressions of those sunrise

214

WINNING A COMPETENCE

days, more enduring than granite mountains.
Through all the landscapes I have looked into,
with all their wealth of forests, rivers, lakes,
and glaciers, and happy living faces, your
face, Janet, is still seen as clear and keenly
outlined as on the day I went away on my long
walk.

Aye, the auld lang syne is indeed young.
Time seems of no avail to make us old except
in mere outer aspects. To-day you appear the
same little fairy girl, following me in my walks
with short steps as best you can, stopping now
and then to gather buttercups, and anemones,
and erigenias, sometimes taking my hand in
climbing over a fallen tree, threading your way
through tall grasses and ferns, and pushing
through very small spaces in thickets of under¬
brush. Surely you must remember those hol¬
iday walks, and also your coming into my
dark-room with light when I was blind! And
what light has filled me since that time, I am
sure you will be glad to know — the richest
sun-gold flooding these California valleys, the
spiritual alpenglow steeping the high peaks,
silver light on the sea, the white glancing sun-
spangles on rivers and lakes, light on the
myriad stars of the snow, light sifting through
the angles of sun-beaten icebergs, light in
glacier caves, irised spray wafting from white

215

JOHN MUIR

waterfalls, and the light of calm starry nights
beheld from mountain-tops dipping deep into
the clear air. Aye, my lassie, it is a blessed
thing to go free in the light of this beautiful
world, to see God playing upon everything,
as a man would play on an instrument. His
fingers upon the lightning and torrent, on every
wave of sea and sky, and every living thing,
making all together sing and shine in sweet ac¬
cord, the one love-harmony of the Universe.
But what need to write so far and wide, now
you are so near, and when I shall so soon see
you face to face?

I only meant to tell you that you were not
forgotten. You think I may not know you at
first sight, nor will you be likely to recognize
me. Every experience is recorded on our faces
in characters of some sort, I suppose, and if at
all telling, my face should be quite picturesque
and marked enough to be readily known by
anybody looking for me: but when I look in the
glass, I see but little more than the marks of
rough weather and fasting. Most people would
see only a lot of hair, and two eyes, or one and
a half, in the middle of it, like a hillside with
small open spots, mostly overgrown with
shaggy chaparral, as this portrait will show
[drawing]. Wanda, peeping past my elbow,
asks, ^ Ys that you. Papa? and then goes on to

216

A SELF-PORTRAIT
Drawing in letter of February 23, 1887
to Miss Janet Douglass Moores

*

WINNING A COMPETENCE

say that it is just like me, only the hair is not
curly enough; also that the little ice and island
sketches are just lovely, and that I must draw a
lot just like them for her. I think that you will
surely like her. She remarked the other day
that she was well worth seeing now, having got
a new gown or something that pleased her.
She is six years old.

The ranch and the pasture hills hereabouts
are not very interesting at this time of year.
In bloom-time, now approaching, the orchards
look gay and Dolly Vardenish, and the home-
garden does the best it can with rose bushes
and so on, all good in a food and shelter way,
but about as far from the forests and gardens
of God’s wilderness as bran-dolls are from chil¬
dren. I should like to show you my wild lily
and Cassiope and Bryanthus gardens, and
homes not made with hands, with their daisy
carpets and woods and streams and other fine
furniture, and singers, not in cages; but legs
and ankles are immensely important on such
visits. Unfortunately most girls are like flowers
that have to stand and take what comes, or at
best ride on iron rails around and away from
what is worth seeing; then they are still some¬
thing like flowers — flowers in pots carried by
express.

I advised you not to come last Friday be-

217

JOHN MUIR

cause the weather was broken, and the tele¬
phone was broken, and the roads were muddy,
but the weather will soon shine again, and then
you and Mary can come, with more comfort
and safety. Remember me to Mary, and
believe me.

Ever truly your friend

John Mum

Muir^s literary unproductiveness during the
eighties began to excite comment among his
friends if one may judge by several surviving
letters in which they inquire whether he has
forsaken literature. His wife, also, was eager
to have him continue to write, and it was, per¬
haps, due to this gentle pressure from several
quarters that he accepted in 1887 a proposal
from the J. Dewing Company to edit and con¬
tribute to an elaborately illustrated work en¬
titled ^^Picturesque California.^’ As usual with
such works, it was issued in parts, sold by sub¬
scription, and while it bears the publication
date of 1888, it was not finished until a year or
two later.

As some of the following letters show, Muir
found it a hard grind to supply a steady stream
of copy to the publishers and to supervise his
corps of workmen on the ranch at the same
time. am all nerve-shaken and lean as a

218

WINNING A COMPETENCE

crow — loaded with care, work, and worry/ ^
he wrote to his brother David after a serious
illness of his daughter Helen in August, 1887.
^^The care and worry will soon wear away, I
hope, but the work seems rather to increase.
There certainly is more than enough of it to
keep me out of mischief forever. Besides the
ranch I have undertaken a big literary job, an
illustrated work on California and Alaska. I
have already written and sent in the two first
numbers and the illustrations, I think, are
nearly ready.

The prosecution of this task involved various
trips, and on some of them he was accompanied
by his friend William Keith, the artist. Per¬
haps the longest was the one on which they
started together early in July, 1888, traveling
north as far as Vancouver and making many
halts and side excursions, both going and com¬
ing. Muir was by no means a well man when
he left home, but in a train letter to his wife he
expressed confidence that he would ^^be well
at Shasta beneath a pine tree.” The excursion
took him to Mount Hood, Mount Bainier,
Snoqualmie and Spokane Falls, and Victoria,
up the Columbia, and to many places of minor
interest in the Puget Sound region. In spite of
his persistent indisposition he made the ascent
of Mount Rainier. '^Did not mean to climb

219

JOHN MUIR

it,” he wrote to his wife, ^^but got excited and
soon was on top.”

It did not escape the keen eyes of his devoted
wife that the work of the ranch was in no small
measure responsible for the failure of his health.

ranch that needs and takes the sacrifice of
a noble life,” she wrote to her husband on this
trip, ought to be flung away beyond all reach
and power for harm. . . . The Alaska book and
the Yosemite book, dear John, must be written,
and you need to be your own self, well and
strong, to make them worthy of you. There is
nothing that has a right to be considered be¬
side this except the welfare of our children.”

Muir’s health, however, improved during the
following winter and summer, notwithstanding
the fact that the completion of ^^Picturesque
California” kept him under tension all the
time. By taking refuge from the tasks of the
ranch at a hotel in San Francisco, during
periods of intensive application, he learned to
escape at least the strain of conflicting respon¬
sibilities. But even so he had to admit at times
that he was hard at work on the vineyards and
orchards while the publishers of ^Picturesque
California’ are screaming for copy.” In letters
written to his wife, during periods of seclusion
in San Francisco, Muir was accustomed to
quote choice passages for comment and ap-

220

WINNING A COMPETENCE

proval. The fact is of interest because it re¬
veals that he had in her a stimulating and ap¬
preciative helper.

To Mrs, Muir

Grand Hotel, San Francisco, Cal.

July 4ih, 1889

Dear Louie :

I^m pegging away and have invented a few
good lines since coining here, but it is a hard
subject and goes slow. However, T\\ get it
done somehow and sometime. It was cold here
last evening and I had to put on everything in
my satchel at once. . . .

Last evening an innocent-looking ^ ^Exam¬
iner reporter sent up his card, and I, really in¬
nocent, told the boy to let him come up. He be¬
gan to speak of the Muir Glacier, but quickly
changed the subject to horned toads, snakes,
and Gila monsters. I asked him what made him
change the subject so badly and what there was
about the Muir Glacier to suggest such repro¬
bate reptiles. He said snakes were his specialty
and wanted to know if I had seen many, etc. I
talked carelessly for a few minutes, and judge
of my surprise in seeing this villainous article.
'^John Muir says they kill hogs and eat rab¬
bits, but donT eat hogs because too big, etc.^^
What poetry! It^s so perfectly ridiculous, I

221

JOHN MUIR

have at least had a good lailgh out of it. ^^The
toughness of the skin makes a difference/^ etc.
— should think it would!

The air has been sulphurous all day and
noisy as a battle-field. Heard some band
music, but kept my room and saw not the pro¬
cession.

Hope your finger is not going to be seriously
sore and that the babies are well. I feel nervous
about them after reading about those geo¬
logical snakes of John Muir. . . .

My room is better than the last, and I might
at length feel at home with my Puget Sound
scenery had I not seen and had nerves shaken
with those Gila monsters. I hope Ifil survive,
though the Examiner^’ makes me say, ‘‘If
the poison gets into them it takes no time at all
to kill them’’ (the hogs), and my skin is not as
thick. Remember me to Grandma, Grandpa,
and the babies, and tell them not the sad story
of the snakes of Fresno.

Ever yours

John Muir

To Mrs, Muir

Grand Hotel, San Francisco, Cal.
July bihj 1889

Dear Louie :

Here are more snakes that I found in the

222

WINNING A COMPETENCE

‘'Call” this morning! The curly, crooked
things have fairly gained the papers and bid
fair to crawl through them all, leaving a track
never, I fear, to be obhterated. The "Chron¬
iclers” turn will come next, I fancy, and others
will follow. I suppose I ought to write a good
post-glacial snake history for the "Bulletin,’’
for just see how much better this lady’s snakes
are than mine in the "Examiner!” "The
biggest snake that ever waved a warning rat¬
tle” — almost poetry compared with "John
Muir says they don’t eat sheep.” "Wriggling
and rattling aborigines!” I’m ashamed of my
ramshackle "Examiner” prose. The Indians
"tree the game’’ and "hang up his snakeship”
"beautifully cured” in "sweet fields arrayed
in hving green,” "and very beautiful they are,”
etc., etc., etc. Oh, dear, how scrawny and lean
and mean my snake composition seems !
Worse in its brutal simplicity than Johnnie’s
composition about "A Owl.” Well, it must be
borne.

I’m pegging away. Saw Upham to-day. Dr.
Vincent is at the Palace. Haven’t called on
him; too busy. Love to all. Don’t tell any¬
body about my poor snakes. Kiss the babies.

J. M.

223

JOHN MUIR

<

To Mrs, Muir

Grand Hotel, July 6, 1889

Oh, dear Louie, here are more of ^Hhem
snakes’’ — ‘^whirled and whizzed like a wheel,”
^^big as my thigh, and head like my fist,” all of
them, you see, better and bigger than John
Muir’s.

And when, oh, when, is that fatal interview
to end? How many more idiotic articles are to
grow out of it? Muir’s Strange Story,” “Ele¬
phants’ bones are sticking in the Yukon River,
says geologist John Muir”! “Bering Straits
may be bridged because Bering Sea is shallow ! ”
Oh! Oh! if the “Examiner” would only ex¬
amine its logic!!! Anyhow, I shall take fine
cautious care that the critter will not examine
me again.

Oh, dear Louie, here’s more, and were these
letters not accompanied by the documentary
evidence, you might almost think that these
reptiles were bred and born in alcohol! “The
Parson and the Snakes!” Think of that for
Sunday reading! What is to become of this
nation and the “Examiner”?

It’s Johnson, too. Who would have thought
it? And think of Longfellow’s daughter being
signed to such an article!

Well, I’m pegging away, but very slowly.
Have got to the thirtieth page. Enough in four

224

WINNING A COMPETENCE

days for five minutes^ reading. And yet I work
hard, but the confounded subject has got so
many arms and branches, and I am so cruelly
severe on myself as to quahty and honesty of
work, that I canT go fast. I just get tired in
the head and lose all power of criticism until I
rest awhile.

It^s very noisy here, but I donT notice it. I
sleep well, and eat well, and my queer throat
feeling has nearly vanished. The weather is
very cool. Have to put my overcoat on the
bed to reinforce the moderate cover. . . . Good¬
night. Love to babies and all.

J. M.

To Mrs, Muir

Grand Hotel, San Francisco, Cal.

July 11, 1889

Dear Louie:

I was very glad to get your letter to-day, for
somehow I was getting anxious about you all
as if, instead of a week, I had been gone a year
and had nothing but lonesome silence all the
time.

You must see, surely, that I am getting
literary, for I have just finished writing for the
day and it is half-past twelve. Last evening I
went to bed at this time and got up at six and
have written twenty pages to-day, and feel

225

JOHN MUm

proud that now I begin to see the end of this
article that has so long been a black, growling
cloud in my sky. Some of the twenty pages
were pretty good, too, I think. 1^11 copy a
little bit for you to judge. Of course, you say,
^^go to bed.” Well, never mind a little writing
more or less, for I’m literary now, and the
fountains flow. Speaking of climate here,
I say:

The Sound region has a fine, fresh, clean climate,
well washed, both winter and summer with copious
rains, and swept with winds and clouds from the
mountains and the sea. Every hidden nook in the
depths of the woods is searched and refreshed, leav¬
ing no stagnant air. Beaver-meadows, lake-basins,
and low, willowy bogs are kept wholesome and
sweet, etc.

Again:

The outer sea margin is sublimely drenched and
dashed with ocean brine, the spicy scud sweeping
far inland in times of storm over the bending woods,
the giant trees waving and chanting in hearty ac¬
cord, as if surely enjoying it all.

Here’s another bit : [Quotes what is now the
concluding paragraph of Chapter XVII in

Steep Trails,” beginning ^^The most charm¬
ing days here are days of perfect calm,” etc.].

Well, I may be dull to-morrow, and then
too, I have to pay a visit to that charming,

226

WINNING A COMPETENCE

entertaining, interesting [dentist] critter’^ of
files and picks, called Cutlar. So much, I
suppose, for cold wind in my jaw. Good-night.

Love to all,

J. M.

To Mrs, Muir

Grand Hotel, San Francisco
July 12, 1889

Dear Louie :

Twelve and a half o^clock again, so that this
letter should be dated the 13th. Was at the
dentist’s an hour and a half. . . . Still, have
done pretty well, seventeen pages now, eighty-
six altogether. Dewing is telegraphing like
mad from New York for Muir’s manuscript.
He will get it ere long. Most of the day’s work
was prosy, except the last page just now
written. Here it is. Speaking of masts sent
from Puget Sound, I write:

Thus these trees, stripped of their leaves and
branches, are raised again, transplanted and set
firmly erect, given roots of iron, bare cross-poles for
limbs, and a new foliage of flapping canvas, and
then sent to sea, where they go merrily bowing and
waving, meeting the same winds that rocked them
when they stood at home in the woods. After stand¬
ing in one place all their lives, they now, like sight¬
seeing tourists, go round the world, meeting many a
relative from the old home forest, some, like them-

227

JOHN MUIR

selves, arrayed in broad canvas foliage, others
planted close to shore, head downward in the mud,
holding wharf platforms aloft to receive the wares
of all nations.

Imaginative enough, but I don’t know what
I’ll think of it in the sober morning. I see by
the papers that [John] Swett is out of school,
for which I am at once glad, sorry, and indig¬
nant, if not more.

Love to all. Good-night.

J. M.

To Mrs, Muir

Grand Hotel, San Francisco
July 14, 1889

Dear Louie :

It is late, but I will write very fast a part of
to-day’s composition. Here is a bit you will
like:

The upper Snoqualmie Fall is about seventy-five
feet high, with bouncing rapids at head and foot,
set in a romantic deU thatched with dripping mosses
and ferns and embowered in dense evergreens and
blooming bushes. The road to it leads through
'‘.ajestic woods with ferns ten feet long beneath the
crees, and across a gravelly plain disforested by fire
many years ago, where orange lilies abound and
bright shiny mats of kinnikinick sprinkled with
scarlet berries. From a place called “Hunt’s,” at
the end of the wagon road, a trail leads through

228

WINNING A COMPETENCE

fresh dripping woods never dry — Merten, Men-
zies, and Douglas spruces and maple and Thuja.
The ground is covered with the best moss-work of
the moist cool woods of the north, made up chiefly
of the various species of hypnum, with Marchantia
jungermannia, etc., in broad sheets and bosses
where never a dust particle floated, and where all
the flowers, fresh with mist and spray, are wetter
than water-lilies.

In the pool at the foot of the fall there is good
trout-fishing, and when I was there I saw some
bright beauties taken. Never did angler stand in a
spot more romantic, but strange it seemed that any¬
one could give attention to hooking in a place so
surpassingly lovely to look at — the enthusiastic
rush and song of the fall; the venerable trees over¬
head leaning forward over the brink like listeners
eager to catch every word of their white refreshing
waters; the delicate maidenhairs and aspleniums,
with fronds outspread, gathering the rainbow spray,
and the myriads of hooded mosses, every cup fresh
and shining.

Kerens another kind — starting for Mount
Rainier:

The guide was well mounted, Keith had bones to
ride, and so had small queer Joe, the camp boy, and
I. The rest of the party traveled afoot. The dis¬
tance to the mountain from Yelm in a straight line
is about fifty miles. But by the Mule-and- Yellow-
Jacket trail, that we had to foUow, it is one hundred
miles. For, notwithstanding a part of the trail runs
in the air where the wasps work hardest, it is far
from being an air-line as commonly understood.

229

JOHN MUIR

At the Soda Springs near Rainier:

Springs here and there bubble up from the margin
of a level marsh, both hot and cold, and likely to tell
in some way on all kinds of ailments. At least so we
were assured by our kind buxom hostess, who ad¬
vised us to drink without ceasing from all in turn
because every one of ^em had medicine in it and
[was] therefore sure to do good ! ” All our party were
sick, perhaps from indulging too freely in ‘^canned
goods” of uncertain age. But whatever the poison
might have been, these waters failed to wash it
away though we applied them freely and faithfully
internally and externally, and almost eternally as
one of the party said.

Next morning all who had come through the
ordeal of yellow- jackets, ancient meats, and me¬
dicinal waters with sufficient strength, resumed the
journey to Paradise Valley and Camp of the Clouds,
and, strange to say, only two of the party were left
behind in bed too sick to walk or ride. Fortunately
at this distressing crisis, by the free application
of remedies ordinary and extraordinary, such as
brandy, paregoric, pain-killer, and Doctor some-
body-or-other’s Golden Vegetable Wonder, they
were both wonderfully relieved and joined us at the
Cloud Camp next day, etc., etc., etc.

The dentist is still hovering like an angel or
something over me. The writing will be fin¬
ished to-morrow if all goes well. But punctua¬
tion and revision will take some time, and as
there is now enough to fill two numbers, I
suppose it will have to be cut down a little.

230

WINNING A COMPETENCE

Guess Ill get home Thursday, but will try for
Wednesday. Hoping all are well, I go to
slumber.

With loving wishes for all

[John Mum]

To James Davie Butler

IMartinez, September 1, 1889
My dear old friend Professor Butler:

You are not forgotten, but I am stupidly
busy, too much so to be able to make good use
of odd hours in writing. All the year I have
from fifteen to forty men to look after on the
ranch, besides the selling of the fruit, and the
editing of ^^Picturesque California,’^ and the
writing of half of the work or more. This fall I
have to contribute some articles to the “Cen¬
tury Magazine,” so you will easily see that I
am laden.

It is delightful to see you in your letters with
your family and books and glorious surround¬
ings. Every region of the world that has been
recently glaciated is pure and wholesome and
abounds in fine scenery, and such a region is
your northern lake country. How gladly I
would cross the mountains to join you all for a
summer if I could get away! But much of my
old freedom is now lost, though I run away
right or wrong at times. Last summer I spent

231

JOHN MUIR

a few months in Washington Territory study¬
ing the grand forests of Puget Sound. I then
climbed to the summit of Mount Rainier, about
fifteen thousand feet high, over many miles of
wildly shattered and crevassed glaciers. Some
twenty glaciers flow down the flanks of this
grand icy cone, most of them reaching the
forests ere they melt and give place to roaring
turbid torrents. This summer I made yet an¬
other visit to my old Yosemite home, and out
over the mountains at the head of the Tuol¬
umne River. I was accompanied by one of the
editors of the “Century,^’ and had a delightful
time. When we were passing the head of the
Vernal Falls I told our thin, subtle, spiritual
story to the editor.

In a year or two I hope to find a capable
foreman to look after this ranch work, with its
hundreds of tons of grapes, pears, cherries, etc.,
and find time for book-writing and old-time
wanderings in the wilderness. I hope also to
see you ere we part at the end of the day.

You want my manner of fife. Well, in short,
I get up about six o^clock and attend to the
farm work, go to bed about nine and read until
midnight. When I have a literary task I leave
home, shut myself up in a room in a San Fran¬
cisco hotel, go out only for meals, and peg away
awkwardly and laboriously until the wee sma’

232

WINNING A COMPETENCE

hours or thereabouts, working long and hard
and accomplishing Httle. During meals at
home my httle girls make me tell stories, many
of them very long, continued from day to day
for a month or two. . . .

Will you be likely to come again to our side
of the continent? How I should enjoy your
visit! To think of little Henry an alderman!
I am glad that you are all well and all together.
Greek and ozone holds you in health. . . .

With love to Mrs. Butler and Henry, James,
the girls, and thee, old friend, I am ever

Your friend

John Mum

The event of greatest ultimate significance
in the year 1889 was the meeting of Muir with
Robert Underwood Johnson, the Century’^
editor mentioned in the preceding letter. Muir
had been a contributor to the magazine ever
since 1878, when it still bore the name of
^‘Scribner^s Monthly,” and therefore he was
one of the men with whom Mr. Johnson made
contact upon his arrival in San Francisco.
Muir knew personally many of the early Cali¬
fornia pioneers and so was in a position to give
valuable advice in organizing for the Cen¬
tury” a series of articles under the general title
of ^‘Gold-Hunters.” This accomplished, it was

233

JOHN MUIR

arranged that Muir was to take Mr. Johnson
into the Yosemite Valley and the High Sierra.
Beside a camp-fire in the Tuolumne Meadows,
Mr. Johnson suggested to Muir that he initiate
a project for the establishment of the Yosemite
National Park.^ In order to further the move¬
ment it was agreed that he contribute a series
of articles to the “ Century/’ setting forth the
beauties of the region. Armed with these ar¬
ticles and the public sentiment created by them,
Johnson proposed to go before the House Com¬
mittee on Public Lands to urge the establish¬
ment of a national park along the boundaries
to be outlined by Muir.

Our country has cause for endless congratu¬
lation that the plan was carried out with ability
and success. In August and September, 1890,
appeared Muir’s articles ^^The Treasures of
Yosemite” and Features of the Proposed
Yosemite National Park,” both of which
aroused strong public support for the project.
A bill introduced in Congress by General
William Vandever embodied the limits of the
park as proposed by Mr. Muir, and on October
1, 1890, the Yosemite National Park became
an accomplished fact. The following letters

^ For a very readable account of this eventful incident
see Robert Underwood Johnson’s Remembered Yesterdays
(1923).

234

WINNING A COMPETENCE

relate to the beginning and consummation of
this far-sighted beneficial project.

To Mrs, Muir

Yosemite Valley, Cal.

June 3, 1889

Dear Louie :

We arrived here about one o’clock after a
fine glorious ride through the forests; not much
dust, not very hot. The entire trip very de¬
lightful and restful and exhilarating. Johnson
was charming all the way. I looked out as we
passed Martinez about eleven o’clock, and it
seemed strange I should ever go past that re¬
nowned town. I thought of you all as sleeping
and safe. Whatever more of travel I am to do
must be done soon, as it grows ever harder to
leave my nest and young.

The foothills and all the woods of the Valley
are flowery far beyond what I could have looked
for, and the sugar pines seemed nobler than
ever. Indeed, all seems so new I fancy I could
take up the study of these mountain glories
with fresh enthusiasm as if I were getting into
a sort of second youth, or dotage, or something

of that sort. Governor W - was in our

party, big, burly, and somewhat childishly
jolly; also some other jolly fellows and fel-
lowesses.

235

JOHN MUIR

Saw Hill and his fine studio. He has one
large Yosemite — very fine, but did not like it
so well as the one you saw. He has another
Yosemite about the size of the Glacier that I
fancy you would all like. It is sold for five
hundred dollars, but he would paint another if
you wished.

Everybody is good to us. Frank Pixley is
here and Ben Truman that wrote about Tropi¬
cal California. I find old Galen Clark also. He
looks well, and is earning a living by carrying
passengers about the Valley. Leidig’s and
Black’s old hotels are torn down, so that only
Bernards’ and the new Stoneman House are
left. This last is quite grand; still it has a silly
look amid surroundings so massive and sub¬
lime. McAuley and the immortal twins still
flounder and flourish in the ethereal sky of
Glacier Point.

I mean to hire Indians, horses, or something
and make a trip to the Lake Tenaya region or
Big [Tuolumne] Meadows and Tuolumne
Canon. But how much we will be able to ac¬
complish will depend upon the snow, the legs,
and the resolution of the Century. Give my
love to everybody at the two houses and kiss
and keep the precious babies for me as for thee.

Will probably be home in about a week.

Ever thine J. M.

236

WINNING A COMPETENCE

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, March 4, 1890

Dear Mr. Johnson:

. . . The love of Nature among Californians
is desperately moderate; consuming enthu¬
siasm almost wholly unknown. Long ago I
gave up the floor of Yosemite as a garden, and
looked only to the rough taluses and inacces¬
sible or hidden benches and recesses of the
walls. All the flowers are wall-flowers now,
not only in Yosemite, but to a great extent
throughout the length and breadth of the
Sierra. Still, the Sierra flora is not yet beyond
redemption, and much may be done by the
movement you are making.

As to the management, it should, I think,
be taken wholly out of the Governor's hands.
The oflice changes too often and must always
be more or less mixed with politics in its bear¬
ing upon appointments for the Valley. A com¬
mission consisting of the President of the
University, the President of the State Board of
Agriculture, and the President of the Me¬
chanics Institute would, I think, be a vast im¬
provement on the present commission. Per¬
haps one of the commissioners should be an
army officer. Such changes would not be likely,
as far as I can see, to provoke any formidable
opposition on the part of Cahfornians in

237

JOHN MUIR

general. Taking back the Valley on the part
of the Government would probably be a
troublesome job. . . . Everybody to whom I
have spoken on the subject sees the necessity
of a change, however, in the management, and
would favor such a commission as I have sug¬
gested. For my part, I should rather see the
Valley in the hands of the Federal Govern¬
ment. But how glorious a storm of growls and
howls would rend our sunny skies, bursting
forth from every paper in the state, at the out¬
rage of the Century’^ Editor snatching with
unholy hands, etc., the diadem from Cali¬
fornians brow! Then where, oh, where would
be the supineness of which you speak?
These Californians now sleeping in apathy,
caring only for what ^^pays, would then blaze
up as did the Devil when touched by Ithurieks
spear. A man may not appreciate his wife,
but let her daddie try to take her back!

... As to the extension of the grant, the
more we can get into it the better. It should
at least comprehend all the basins of the
streams that pour into the Valley. No great
opposition would be encountered in gaining
this much, as few interests of an antagonistic
character are involved. On the Upper Merced
waters there are no mines or settlements of any
sort, though some few land claims have been

238

WINNING A COMPETENCE

established. These could be easily extinguished
by purchase. All the basins draining into
Yosemite are really a part of the Valley, as
their streams are a part of the Merced. Cut off
from its branches, Yosemite is only a stump.
However gnarly and picturesque, no tree that
is beheaded looks well. But like ants creeping
in the furrows of the bark, few of all the visitors
to the Valley see more than the stump, and but
little of that. To preserve the Valley and leave
all its related rocks, waters, forests to fire and
sheep and lumbermen is like keeping the grand
hall of entrance of a palace for royalty, while
all the other apartments from cellar to dome
are given up to the common or uncommon use
of industry — butcher-shops, vegetable-stalls,
liquor-saloons, lumber-yards, etc.

But even the one main hall has a hog-pen in
the middle of the floor, and the whole concern
seems hopeless as far as destruction and des¬
ecration can go. Some of that stink, I’m afraid,
has got into the pores of the rocks even. .Per¬
haps it was the oncoming shadow of this des¬
ecration that caused the great flood and earth¬
quake — Nature sighing through all her
works giving sign of woe that all was lost.”
Still something may be done after all. I have
indicated the boundary line on the map in
dotted fine as proposed above. A yet greater

239

I

JOHN MUm

extension I have marked on the same map, ex¬
tending north and south between Lat. 38° and
37° 30' and from the axis of the range westward
about thirty-six or forty miles. This would in¬
clude three groves of Big Trees, the Tuolumne
Canon, Tuolumne Meadows, and Hetch Hetchy
Valley. So large an extension would, of course,
meet more opposition. Its boundary lines
would not be nearly so natural, while to the
westward many claims would be encountered;
a few also about Mounts Dana and Warren,
where mines have been opened.

Come on out here and take another look at
the Canon. The earthquake taluses are all
smooth now and the chaparral is buried, while
the river still tosses its crystal arches aloft and
the ouzel sings. We would be sure to see some
fine avalanches. Come on. V\l go if you will,
leaving ranch, reservations. Congress bills.
Century’^ articles, and all other terrestrial
cares and particles. In the meantime I am

Cordially yours

John Muir

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, Ayril V^th, 1890
My dear Mr. Johnson:

I hope you have not been put to trouble by
the delay of that manuscript. I have been in-

240

WINNING A COMPETENCE

terrupted a thousand times, while writing, by
coughs, grippe, business, etc. I suppose you
will have to divide the article. I shall write
a sketch of the Tuolumne Canon and Kings
River yosemite, also the charming yosemite of
the Middle Fork of Kings River, all of which
may, I think, be got into one article of ten
thousand words or twenty. If you want more
than is contained in the manuscript sent you
on the peaks and glaciers to the east of Yose¬
mite, let me know and I will try to give what is
wanted with the Tuolumne Canon.

The Yosemite Century’^ leaven is working
finely, even thus far, throughout California. I
enclose a few clippings. The Bulletin
printed the whole of Mack’s “Times” letter
on our honest Governor. [Charles Howard]
Shinn says that the “Overland” is going out
into the battle henceforth in full armor. The
“Evening Post” editorial, which I received
last night and have just read, is a good one and
I will try to have it reprinted. . . .

Mr. Olmsted’s paper was, I thought, a little
soft in some places, but all the more telling, I
suppose, in some directions. Kate, like fate,
has been going for the Governor, and I fancy
he must be dead or at least paralyzed ere this.

How fares the Bill Vandever? I hope you
gained all the basin. If you have, then a thou-

241

JOHN MUIR

sand trees and flowers will rise up and call you
blessed, besides the other mountain people and
the usual unborn generations/^ etc.

In the meantime for what you have already
done I send you a reasonable number of Yose-
mite thanks, and remain

Very truly yoiu* friend

John Muir

To Mr, and Mrs, John Bidwell

Martinez, California
April IQth, 1890

Dear Mrs. Bidwell and General:

IVe been thinking of you every day since
dear Parry ^ died. It seems as if all the good
flower people, at once great and good, have
died now that Parry has gone — Torrey, Gray,
Kellogg, and Parry. Plenty more botanists
left, but none we have like these. Men more
amiable apart from their intellectual power I
never knew, so perfectly clean and pure they
were — pure as lilies, yet tough and unyielding
in mental fibre as live-oaks. Oh, dear, it makes
me feel lonesome, though many lovely souls
remain. Never shall I forget the charming

^ Charles C. Parry, 1823-90. Explored and collected on
the Mexican boundary, in the Rocky Mountains, and in
California. The other botanists mentioned are John Torrey,
1796-1873; Asa Gray, 1810-88; and Albert Kellogg, who
died in 1887.

242

WINNING A COMPETENCE

evenings I spent with Torrey in Yosemite, and
with Gray, after the day’s rambles were over
and they told stories of their lives, Torrey
fondly telling all about Gray, Gray about
Torrey, all in one summer; and then, too, they
told me about Parry for the first time. And
then how fine and how fruitful that trip to
Shasta with you! Happy days, not to come
again! Then more than a week with Parry
around Lake Tahoe in a boat; had him all to
myself — precious memories. It seems easy
to die when such souls go before. And blessed
it is to feel that they have indeed gone before
to meet us in turn when our own day is done.

The Scotch have a proverb, ^^The evenin’
brings a’ hame.” And so, however separated,
far or near, the evening of life brings all to¬
gether at the last. Lovely souls embalmed in a
thousand flowers, embalmed in the hearts of
their friends, never for a moment does death
seem to have had anything to do with them.
They seem near, and are near, and as if in
bodily sight I wave my hand to them in loving
recognition.

Ever yours

John Muir

243

JOHN MUIR

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, May Sth, 1890
My dear Mr. Johnson:

... As I have urged over and over again, the
Yosemite Reservation ought to include all the
Yosemite fountains. They all lie in a compact
mass of mountains that are glorious scenery,
easily accessible from the grand Yosemite
center, and are not valuable for any other use
than the use of beauty. No other interests
would suffer by this extension of the boundary.
Only the summit peaks along the axis of the
range are possibly gold-bearing, and not a
single valuable mine has yet been discovered
in them. Most of the basin is a mass of solid
granite that will never be available for agricul¬
ture, while its forests ought to be preserved.
The Big Tuolumne Meadows should also be
included, since it forms the central camping-
ground for the High Sierra adjacent to the
Valley. The Tuolumne Canon is so closely re¬
lated to the Yosemite region it should also be
included, but whether it is or not will not
matter much, since it lies in rugged rocky
security, as one of Nature^s own reservations.

As to the lower boundary, it should, I think,
be extended so far as to include the Big Tree
groves below the Valley, thus bringing under
Government protection a section of the forest

244

WINNING A COMPETENCE

containing specimens of all the principal trees
of the Sierra, and which, if left unprotected,
will vanish like snow in summer. Some private
claims will have to be bought, but the cost will
not be great.

Yours truly

John Mum

While traveling about with Keith in the
Northwest during July, 1888, gathering ma¬
terials for “Picturesque California,^’ Muir was
one day watching at Victoria the departure of
steamers for northern ports. Instantly he
heard the call of the “red gods” of Alaska and
began to long for the old adventurous days in
the northern wildernesses. “Though it is now
ten years since my last visit here,” he wrote to
his wife in the evening, “Alaska comes back
into near view, and if a steamer were to start
now it would be hard indeed to keep myself
from going aboard. I must spend one year
more there at the least. The work I am now
doing seems much less interesting and impor¬
tant. . . . Only by going alone in silence, with¬
out baggage, can one truly get into the heart
of the wilderness. All other travel is mere dust
and hotels and baggage and chatter.”

The longed-for opportunity came two years
later. During the winter of 1890 he had suffered

245

JOHN MUIR

an attack of the grippe which brought on a
severe bronchial cough. He tried to wear it out
at his desk, but it grew steadily worse. He
then, as he used to relate with a twinkle in his
eye, decided upon the novel experiment of try¬
ing to wear it out by going to Alaska and ex¬
ploring the upper tributaries of the Muir Gla¬
cier. In the following letter we get a glimpse
of him after two weeks of active exploration
around Glacier Bay.

To Mrs, Muir

Glacier Bay

Camp near eastern end of ice wall
July 7th, [1890]

Dear Louie :

The steamer Queen is in sight pushing up
Muir Inlet through a grand crowd of bergs, on
which a clear sun is shining. I hope to get a
letter from you to hear how you and the little
ones and older ones are.

I have had a good instructive and exciting
time since last I wrote you by the Elder a week
ago. The weather has been fine and I have
climbed two mountains that gave grand general
views of the immense mountain fountains of
the glacier and also of the noble St. Elias
Range along the coast mountains, La P^rouse,
Crillon, Lituya, and Fairweather. Have got

246

WINNING A COMPETENCE

some telling facts on the forest question that
has so puzzled me these many years, etc., etc.
Have also been making preliminary observa¬
tions on the motion of the glacier. Loomis and
I get on well, and the Reid ^ and Cushing party
camped beside us are fine company and ener¬
getic workers. They are making a map of the
Muir Glacier and Inlet, and intend to make
careful and elaborate measurements of its rate
of motion, size, etc. They are well supplied
with instruments and will no doubt do good
work.

I have yet to make a trip round Glacier Bay,
to the edge of the forest and over the glacier as
far as I can. Probably Reid and Cushing and
their companions will go with me. If this
weather holds, I shall not encounter serious
trouble. Anyhow, I shall do the best I can. I
mean to sew the bear skin into a bag, also a
blanket and a canvas sheet for the outside.
Then, like one of Wanda^s caterpillars, I can
lie warm on the ice when night overtakes me,
or storms rather, for here there is now no night.
My cough has gone and my appetite has come,
and I feel much better than when I left home.
Love to each and all.

If I have time before the steamer leaves I
will write to my dear Wanda and Helen. The

^ Professor Harry Fielding Reid.

247

JOHN MUIR

crowd of visitors are gazing at the grand blue
crystal wall, tinged with sunshine.

Ever thine

J. M.

The crowning experience of this Alaska trip
was the sled-trip which he made across the
upper reaches of the Muir Glacier between the
11th and the 21st of July. Setting out from
his little cabin on the terminal moraine, Muir
pushed back on the east side of the glacier
toward Howling Valley, fifteen miles to the
northward, examined and sketched some of the
lesser tributaries, then turned to the westward
and crossed the glacier near the confluence of
the main tributaries, and thence made his way
down the west side to the front. No one was
willing to share this adventure with him so he
faced it, as usual, alone.

Chapter XVIII of ‘^Travels in Alaska’’
gives, in journal form, an accoimt of Muir’s
experiences and observations on this trip. To
this may be added his description of two inci¬
dents as related in fragments of unpubhshed
memoirs:

In the course of this trip I encountered few ad¬
ventures worth mention apart from the common
dangers encountered in crossing crevasses. Large
timber wolves were common around Howling

248

WINNING A COMPETENCE

Valley, feeding apparently on the wild goats of the
adjacent mountains.

One evening before sundown I camped on the
glacier about a mile above the head of the valley,
and, sitting on my sled enjoying the wild scenery,
I scanned the grassy mountain on the west side
above the timber-line through my field glasses, ex¬
pecting to see a good many wild goats in pastures
so fine and wild. I discovered only two or three at
the foot of a precipitous bluff, and as they appeared
perfectly motionless, and were not lying down, I
thought they must be held there by attacking
wolves. Next morning, looking again, I found the
goats still standing there in front of the cliff, and
while eating my breakfast, preparatory to contin¬
uing my journey, I heard the dismal long-drawn-
out howl of a wolf, soon answered by another and
another at greater distances and at short intervals
coming nearer and nearer, indicating that they had
discovered me and were coming down the mountain
to observe me more closely, or perhaps to attack
me, for I was told by my Indians while exploring in
1879 and 1880 that these wolves attack either in
summer or winter, whether particularly hungry or
not; and that no Indian hunter ever ventured far
into the woods alone, declaring that wolves were
much more dangerous than bears. The nearest wolf
had evidently got down to the margin of the glacier,
and although I had not yet been able to catch sight
of any of them, I made haste to a large square
boulder on the ice and sheltered myself from attack
from behind, in the same manner as the hunted
goats. I had no firearms, but thought I could make
a good fight with my Alpine ice axe. This, however,

249

JOHN MUIR

was only a threatened attack, and I went on my
journey, though keeping a careful watch to see
whether I was followed.

At noon, reaching the confluence of the eastmost
of the great tributaries and observing that the ice
to the westward was closely crevassed, I concluded
bo spend the rest of the day in ascending what is
now called Snow Dome, a mountain about three
thousand feet high, to scan the whole width of the
glacier and choose the route that promised the
fewest difficulties. The day was clear and I took
the bearings of what seemed to be the best route
and recorded them in my notebook so that in case I
should be stopped by a blinding snowstorm, or im¬
passable labyrinth of crevasses, I might be able to
retrace my way by compass.

In descending the mountain to my sled camp on
the ice I tried to shorten the way by sliding down a
smooth steep fluting groove nicely lined with snow;
but in looking carefully I discovered a bluish spot
a few hundred feet below the head, which I feared
indicated ice beneath the immediate surface of the
snow; but inasmuch as there were no heavy boul¬
ders at the foot of the slope, but only a talus of small
pieces an inch or two in diameter, derived from dis¬
integrating metamorphic slates, lying at as steep an
angle as they could rest, I felt confldent that even if
I should lose control of myself and be shot swiftly
into them, there would be no risk of broken bones.
I decided to encounter the adventure. Down I
glided in a smooth comfortable swish until I struck
the blue spot. There I suddenly lost control of my¬
self and went rolling and bouncing like a boulder
until stopped by plashing into the loose gravelly delta.

250

WINNING A COMPETENCE

As soon as I found my legs and senses I was
startled by a wild, piercing, exulting, demoniac yell,
as if a pursuing assassin long on my trail were
screaming: “IVe got you at last/^ I first imagined
that the wretch might be an Indian, but could not
believe that Indians, who are afraid of glaciers,
could be tempted to venture so far into the icy
solitude. The mystery was quickly solved when a
raven descended hke a thunderbolt from the sky
and alighted on a jag of a rock within twenty or
thirty feet of me. While soaring invisible in the sky,
I presume that he had been watching me all day,
and at the same time keeping an outlook for wild
goats, which were sometimes driven over the cliffs
by the wolves. Anyhow, no sooner had I fallen,
though not a wing had been seen in all the clear
mountain sky, than I had been seen by these black
hunters who now were eagerly looking me over and
seemed sure of a meal. The explanation was com¬
plete, and as they eyed me with a hungry longing
stare I simply called to them: ^‘Not yet!^’

CHAPTER XVI

TREES AND TRAVEL
1891-1897

The sudden death of Dr. Strentzel on the last
of October, 1890, brought in its train a change
of residence for the Muir family. At the time
of his marriage, Muir had first rented and later
purchased from his father-in-law the upper
part of the Alhambra ranch. Dr. Strentzel
thereupon left the old home to his daughter,
and removed to the lower half of the ranch,
where he and his wife built and occupied a
large new frame house on a sightly hill-top.
Since Mrs. Strentzel, after her husband's death,
needed the care of her daughter, the Muirs
left the upper ranch home, in which they had
lived for ten years, and moved to the more
spacious, but on the whole less comfortable,
house which thereafter became known as the
Muir residence.

At the beginning of his father-in-law's illness,
Muir was on the point of starting on a trip up
the Kings River Canon in order to secure ad¬
ditional material for a “Century" article. The
project, naturally, had to be abandoned. “It

252

TREES AND TRAVEL

is now so snowy and late” he wrote to Mr.
Johnson in November, “I fear I shall not be
able to get into the canons this season. I think,
however, that I can write the article from my
old notes. I made three trips through the
Kings River Canon, and one through the wild
Middle Fork Canon with its charming Yose-
mite.^’ The deeper purpose of this article was
to serve as a starter for another national park.
It means that two weeks after the successful
issue of the campaign for the creation of the
Yosemite National Park, Muir, ably assisted
by Mr. R. U. Johnson, began to advocate the
enlargement of the Sequoia National Park so
as to embrace the Kings River region and the
Kaweah and Tule Sequoia groves. John W.
Noble was then Secretary of the Interior (1889-
93), and it is fair to say that, measured by the
magnitude of benefits conferred upon the
country, no more useful incumbent has ever
filled that office. He at once declared himself
ready to withdraw the region from entry if
Muir would delimit upon Land Office maps the
territory that should go into a park.

am going to San Francisco this morning,’^
Muir wrote to Johnson on May 13, 1891, ‘^and
will get the best map I can and will draw the
boundaries of the proposed new park. . . . This
map I shall send you to-morrow. During the

253

JOHN MUm

same month he made another trip up the canon
of the Kings River, particularly the South
Fork, and afterwards wrote for the “ Century ^
an unusually telling description of it under the
title of “A Rival of the Yosemite.’^ ^‘This
region,’’ he said in concluding the article, “con¬
tains no mines of consequence; it is too high
and too rocky for agriculture, and even the
lumber industry need suffer no unreasonable
restriction. Let our law-givers then make
haste, before it is too late, to save this sur¬
passingly glorious region for the recreation and
well-being of humanity, and the world will rise
up and call them blessed.”

Advance sheets of the article, placed in the
hands of Secretary Noble, moved him to bring
Muir’s proposal to the immediate attention of
Congress with the recommendation of “favor¬
able consideration and action.” But over
thirty years have passed since then, and Muir’s
dream of good still awaits reahzation at the
hands of our law-givers. The Roosevelt-
Sequoia National Park bill, now before Con¬
gress, is substantially Muir’s original proposal,
and fittingly recognizes the invaluable service
which Theodore Roosevelt rendered to the
cause of forests and parks, partly in codpera-
tion with Muir, as shown in a succeeding chap-

* NoYember, 1891.

254

TREES AND TRAVEL

ter. This bill should be speedily passed, over
the paltering objections of adventurers who
place their private farthing schemes above the
immeasurable public benefit of a national play¬
ground that not only rivals the already over¬
crowded Yosemite in beauty and spaciousness,
but is, in the words of Muir, ^^a veritable song
of God.’’

Muir had now reached the stage in his career
when he had not only the desire, but also the
power, to translate his nature enthusiasms into
social service. Increasing numbers of progres¬
sive citizens, both East and West, were looking
to him for leadership when corrupt or incompe¬
tent custodians of the public domain needed
to be brought to the bar of public opinion. And
there was much of this work to be done by a
man who was not afraid to stand up under fire.
Muir’s courageous and outspoken criticism of
the mismanagement of Yosemite Valley by
the State Commissioners aroused demands in
Washington for an investigation of the abuses
and a recession of the Valley to the Federal Gov¬
ernment as part of the Yosemite National Park.

Since there was likelihood of a stiff battle
over this and other matters, Muir’s friends^
particularly Mr. R. U. Johnson, urged him to
get behind him a supporting organization on
the Pacific Coast through which men of kindred

255

JOHN MUIR

aims could present a united front. This led to
the formal organization of the Sierra Club on
the 4th of June, 1892. It declared its purpose
to be a double one: first, ^^to explore, enjoy, and
render accessible the mountain regions of the
Pacific Coast, and ^Ho publish authentic in¬
formation concerning them’’; and, second, ‘Ho
enlist the support and codperation of the people
and government in preserving the forests and
other natural features of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains.” The Club, in short, was formed
with two sets of aims, and it gathered into its
membership on the one hand persons who were
primarily lovers of mountains and mountain¬
eering, and on the other hand those whose first
interest was to conserve the forests and other
natural features for future generations. In no
single individual were both these interests bet¬
ter represented than in the person of Muir,
who became the first president of the Club, and
held the office continuously until his death
twenty-two years later. Among the men who
deserve to be remembered in connection with
the organization and early conservation ac¬
tivities of the Club were Warren Olney, Sr.,
and Professors Joseph LeConte, J. H. Senger,
William Dallam Armes, and Cornelius Beach
Bradley.

One of the first important services of the

256

TREES AND TRAVEL

Club was its successful opposition to the so-
called ^^Caminetti Bill/^ a loosely drawn meas¬
ure introduced into Congress in 1892 with the
object of altering the boundaries of the Yosem-
ite National Park in such a way as to ehm-
inate about three hundred alleged mining
claims, and other large areas desired by stock-
men and lumbermen. The bill underwent
various modifications, and finally, in 1894, it
was proposed to authorize the Secretary of the
Interior to make the alterations. Muir’s pub¬
lic interviews and the organized resistance of
the Club, fortunately, repelled this contem¬
plated raid upon the new park; for watchful
guardians of the pubhc domain regarded it as
of ill omen that Secretary Hoke Smith, who
had succeeded John W. Noble in 1893, reported
that he had no objection to interpose to the
bill’s passage.

It should be recorded to the lasting honor of
President Harrison and the Honorable John
W. Noble that they established the first forest
reserves under an Act of Congress ^ passed
March 3, 1891. It was the first real recognition
of the practical value of forests in conserving

^ The authorization of the President to make forest reser¬
vations is contained in a clause inserted in the Sundry Civil
Bill of that year. The credit of it belongs to Edward A.
Bowers , whose name deserves to be held in remembrance for
other noble services to the cause of forest conservation.

257

JOHN MUIR

water-flow at the sources of rivers. The Boone
and Crockett Club on April 8, 1891, made it
the occasion of a special vote of thanks ad¬
dressed to the President and Secretary Noble
on the ground that ^‘this society recognizes in
these actions the most important steps taken
in recent years for the preservation of our
forests.’^ Though not so recognized at the
time, it was a happy augury for the future that
the resolution was inspired, signed, and trans¬
mitted by Theodore Roosevelt.

Among the few surviving Muir letters of the
early nineties is the following one to his In¬
dianapolis friend Mrs. Graydon, who had ex¬
pressed a hope that, if he returned to her home
city during the current year, she might be able
to arrange for a social evening with the poet
James Whitcomb Riley.

To Mrs, Mary Merrill Graydon

Martinez, February 28, 1893
My dear Mrs. Graydon:

I am glad to hear from you once more. You
say you thought on account of long silence we
might be dead, but the worst that could be
fairly said is ^^not dead but sleeping’’ — hardly
even this, for, however silent, sound friendship
never sleeps, no matter how seldom paper
letters fly between.

258

TREES AND TRAVEL

My heart aches about Janet — one of the
sad, sad, sore cases that no human wisdom can
explain. We can only look on the other side
through tears and grief and pain and see that
pleasure surpasses the pain, good the evil, and
that, after all. Divine love is the sublime boss
of the universe.

The children greatly enjoy the [James Whit¬
comb] Riley book you so kindly sent. I saw
Mr. Riley for a moment at the close of one of
his lectures in San Francisco, but I had to
awkwardly introduce myself, and he evidently
couldnT think who I was. Professor [David
Starr] Jordan, who happened to be standing
near, though I had not seen him, surprised me
by saying, ^^Mr. Riley, this man is the author
of the Muir Glacier.^’ I invited Mr. Riley to
make us a visit at the ranch, but his engage¬
ments, I suppose, prevented even had he cared
to accept, and so I failed to see him save in his
lecture.

I remember my visit to your home with pure
pleasure, and shall not forget the kindness you
bestowed, as shown in so many ways. As to
coming again this year, I thank you for the
invitation, but the way is not open so far as I
can see just now.

I think with Mr. Jackson that Henry Riley ^

^ One of his fellow workmen in the wagon factory in

259

JOHN MUIR

shows forth one of the good sides of human na¬
ture in so vividly remembering the little I did
for him so long ago. I send by mail with this
letter one of the volumes of ^^Picturesque Cali¬
fornia^^ for him in your care, as I do not know
his address. Merrill Moores knows him, and
he can give him notice to call for the book. It
contains one of my articles on Washington,
and you are at hberty to open and read it if you
wish.

Katie [Graydon] I have not seen since she
went to Oakland, though only two hours away.
But I know she is busy and happy through
letters and friends. I mean to try to pass a
night at McChesney^s, and see her and find out
all about her works and ways. The children
and all of us remember her stay with us as a
great blessing.

Remember me to the Hendricks family, good
and wholesome as sunshine, to the venerable
Mr. Jackson, and all the grand Merrill family,
your girls in particular, with every one of whom
I fell in love, and believe me, noisy or silent.

Ever your friend

John Muir

Indianapolis, 1866-67. ‘‘Your name is a household word
with us,” wrote Mr. Riley in acknowledging Muir’s gift.
“The world has traveled on at a great rate in the twenty-five
years since you and I made wheels together, and you, I am
proud to say, have traveled with it.”

260

TREES AND TRAVEL

Muir had long cherished the intention of
returning to Scotland in order to compare his
boyhood memories of the dingles and dells of
his native land with what he described, before
the California period of his life, as ^^all the
other less important parts of our world. In
the spring of 1893 he proceeded to carry out
the plan. The well-remembered charms of the
old landscapes were still there, but he was to
find that his standards of comparison had been
changed by the Sierra Nevada. On the way
East he paid a visit to his mother in Wisconsin,
lingered some days at the Chicago World^s
Fair, and then made his first acquaintance with
the social and literary life of New York and
Boston. The following letters give some hint
of the rich harvest of lasting friendships which
he reaped during his eastern sojourn.

To Mrs. Muir

3420 Michigan Ave., Chicago
May 29, 1893, 9 a.m.

Deae Louie :

I leave for New York this evening at five
o^clock and arrive there to-morrow evening at
seven, when I expect to find a letter from you
in care of Johnson at the Century’^ Editorial
Rooms. The Sellers^ beautiful home has been
made heartily my own, and they have left

JOHN MUIR

nothing undone they could think of that would
in any way add to my enjoyment. Under their
guidance I have been at the [World’s] Fair
every day, and have seen the best of it, though
months would be required to see it all.

You know I called it a ^^cosmopolitan rat’s ^
nest,” containing much rubbish and common¬
place stuff as well as things novel and precious.
Well, now that I have seen it, it seems just
such a rat’s nest still, and what, do you think,
was the first thing I saw when I entered the
nearest of the huge buildings? A high rat’s
nest in a glass case about eight feet square,
with stuffed wood rats looking out from the
mass of sticks and leaves, etc., natural as life!
So you see, as usual, I am always right.”

I most enjoyed the art galleries. There are
about eighteen acres of paintings by every
nation under the sun, and I wandered and gazed
until I was ready to fall down with utter ex¬
haustion. The Art Gallery of the California
building is quite small and of little significance,
not more than a dozen or two of paintings all
told: four by Keith, not his best, and four by
Hill, not his best, and a few others of no special
character by others, except a good small one

^ Refers to the wood rat or pack rat (Neotoma) which
builds large mound-like nests and “packs” into them all
kinds of amusing odds and endk •

262

TREES AND TRAVEL

by Yelland. But the National Galleries are per¬
fectly overwhelming in grandeur and bulk and
variety, and years would be required to make
even the most meager curiosity of a criticism.

The outside view of the buildings is grand
and also beautiful. For the best architects
have done their best in building them, while
Frederick Law Olmsted laid out the grounds.
Last night the buildings and terraces and
fountains along the canals were illuminated by
tens of thousands of electric lights arranged
along miles of lines of gables, domes, and cor¬
nices, with glorious effect. It was all fairyland
on a colossal scale and would have made the
Queen of Sheba and poor Solomon in all their
glory feel sick with helpless envy. I wished a
hundred times that you and the children and
Grandma could have seen it all, and only the
feeling that Helen would have been made sick
with excitement prevented me from sending
for you.

I hope Helen is well and then all will be well.
I have worked at my article at odd times now
and then, but it still remains to be finished at
the Century’^ rooms. Tell the children I’ll
write them from New York to-morrow or next
day. Love to all. Good-bye.

Ever yours

263

John Muir

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs, Muir

The Thorndike
Boston, Mass., June 12, 1893

Dear Louie:

I have been so crowded and overladen with
enjoyments lately that I have lost trace of time
and have so much to tell you I scarce know
where and how to begin. When I reached New
York I called on Johnson, and told him I
meant to shut myself up in a room and finish
my articles and then go with Keith to Europe.
But he paid no attention to either my hurry or
Keith^s, and quietly ordered me around and
took possession of me.

New York, June 13

Dear Louie :

I was suddenly interrupted by a whole lot of
new people, visits, dinners, champagne, etc.,
and have just got back to New York by a night
boat by way of Fall River. So I begin again.
Perhaps this is the 13th, Tuesday, for I lose all
track of time.

First I was introduced to all the “ Century
people, with their friends also as they came
in. Dined with Johnson first. Mrs. J. is a
bright, keen, accomplished woman. . . .

Saw Burroughs the second day. He had
been at a Walt Whitman Club the night before,
and had made a speech, eaten a big dinner, and

264

TREES AND TRAVEL

had a headache. So he seemed tired, and gave
no sign of his fine qualities. I chatted an hour
with him and tried to make him go to Europe
with me. The Century men offered him
five hundred dollars for some articles on our
trip as an inducement, but he answered to-day
by letter that he could not go, he must be free
when he went, that he would above all things
like to go with me, etc., but circumstances
would not allow it. The ^^circumstances’’ bar¬
ring the way are his wife. I can hardly say I
have seen him at all.

Dined another day with [Richard Watson]
Gilder. He is charming every way, and has a
charming home and family. ... I also dined in
grand style at Mr. Pinchot’s, whose son is
studying forestry. The home is at Gramercy
Park, New York.^ Here and at many other
places I had to tell the story of the minister’s
dog. Everybody seems to think it wonderful
for the views it gives of the terrible crevasses
of the glaciers as well as for the recognition of
danger and the fear and joy of the dog. I must
have told it at least twelve times at the request
of Johnson or others who had previously heard
it. I told Johnson I meant to write it out for
^^St. Nicholas,” but he says it is too good for
“St. Nick,” and he wants it for the Century”
as a separate article. When I am telling it at

265

JOHN MUIR

the dinner-tables, it is curious to see how
eagerly the liveried servants listen from behind
screens, half-closed doors, etc.

Almost every day in town here I have been
called out to lunch and dinner at the clubs and
soon have a crowd of notables about me. I had
no idea I was so well known, considering how
little I have written. The trip up the Hudson
was delightful. Went as far as West Point, to
Castle Crags, the residence of the [Henry Fair-
field] Osborns. Charming drives in the green
flowery woods, and, strange to say, all the views
are familiar, for the landscapes are all freshly
glacial. Not a line in any of the scenery that is
not a glacial line. The same is true of all the
region hereabouts. I found glacial scoring on
the rocks of Central Park even.

Last Wednesday evening Johnson and I
started for Boston, and we got back this morn¬
ing, making the trip both ways in the night to
economize time. After looking at the famous
buildings, parks, monuments, etc., we took the
train for Concord, wandered through the fa¬
mous Emerson village, dined with Emerson^s
son, visited the Concord Bridge, where the first
blood of the Revolution was shed, and where
^Hhe shot was fired heard round the world.’^
Went through lovely, ferny, flowery woods and
meadows to the hill cemetery and laid flowers

266

TREES AND TRAVEL

on Thoreau^s and Emerson’s graves. I think it
is the most beautiful graveyard I ever saw. It
is on a hill perhaps one hundred and fifty feet
high in the woods of pine, oak, beech, maple,
etc., and all the ground is flowery. Thoreau
lies with his father, mother, and brother not
far from Emerson and Hawthorne. Emerson
lies between two white pine trees, one at his
head, the other at [his] feet, and instead of a
mere tombstone or monument there is a mass
of white quartz rugged and angular, wholly un¬
cut, just as it was blasted from the ledge. I
don’t know where it was obtained. There is not
a single letter or word on this grand natural
monument. It seems to have been dropped
there by a glacier, and the soil he sleeps in is
glacial drift almost wholly unchanged since
first this country saw the light at the close of
the glacial period. There are many other graves
here, though it is not one of the old cemeteries.
Not one of them is raised above ground. Sweet
kindly Mother Earth has taken them back to
her bosom whence they came. I did not imag¬
ine I would be so moved at sight of the resting-
places of these grand men as I found I was, and
I could not help thinking how glad I would be
to feel sure that I would also rest here. But I
suppose it cannot be, for Mother will be in
Portage. . . .

267

JOHN MUIR

After leaving Thoreau and Emerson, we
walked through the woods to Walden Pond. It
is a beautiful lake about half a mile long, fairly
embosomed like a bright dark eye in wooded
hills of smooth moraine gravel and sand, and
with a rich leafy undergrowth of huckleberry,
willow, and young oak bushes, etc., and grass
and flowers in rich variety. No wonder Thoreau
lived here two years. I could have enjoyed
living here two hundred years or two thousand.
It is only about one and a half or two miles
from Concord, a mere saunter, and how people
should regard Thoreau as a hermit on account
of his little delightful stay here I cannot guess.

We visited also Emerson’s home and were
shown through the house. It is just as he left
it, his study, books, chair, bed, etc., and all the
paintings and engravings gathered in his for¬
eign travels. Also saw Thoreau’s village resi¬
dence and Hawthorne’s old manse and other
home near Emerson’s. At six o’clock we got
back from Walden to young Emerson’s father-
in-law’s place in Concord and dined with the
family and Edward Waldo Emerson. The
latter is very like his father — rather tall,
slender, and with his father’s sweet perennial
smile. Nothing could be more cordial and lov¬
ing than his reception of me. When we called at
the house, one of the interesting old colonial

268

TREES AND TRAVEL

ones, he was not in, and we were received by”
his father-in-law, a college mate of Thoreau,
who knew Thoreau all his life. The old man
was sitting on the porch when we called. John¬
son introduced himself, and asked if this was
Judge Keyes, etc. The old gentleman kept his
seat and seemed, I thought, a little cold and
careless in his manner. But when Johnson said,
‘^This is Mr. Muir,’^ he jumped up and said
excitedly, ^^John Muir! Is this John Muir?^'
and seized me as if I were a long-lost son. He
declared he had known me always, and that
my name was a household word. Then he took
us into the house, gave us refreshments, cider,
etc., introduced us to his wife, a charming old-
fashioned lady, who also took me for a son.
Then we were guided about the town and
shown all the famous homes and places. But
I must hurry on or I will be making a book of it.

We went back to Boston that night on a late
train, though they wanted to keep us, and next
day went to Professor Sargent^s grand place,
where we had a perfectly wonderful time for
several days. This is the finest mansion and
grounds I ever saw. The house is about two
hundred feet long with immense verandas
trimmed with huge flowers and vines, standing
in the midst of fifty acres of lawns, groves, wild
woods of pine, hemlock, maple, beech, hickory,

209

JOHN MUIR

etc., and all kinds of underbrush and wild
flowers and cultivated flowers — acres of rho¬
dodendrons twelve feet high in full bloom,
and a pond covered with lilies, etc., all the
ground waving, hill and dale, and clad in the
full summer dress of the region, trimmed with
exquisite taste.

The servants are in livery, and everything is
fine about the house and in it, but Mr. and Mrs.
Sargent are the most cordial and unaffected
people imaginable, and in a few minutes I was
at my ease and at home, sauntering where I
liked, doing what I liked, and making the house
my own. Here we had grand dinners, formal
and informal, and here I told my dog story, I
don’t know how often, and described glaciers
and their works. Here, the last day, I dined
with Dana, of the New York “ Sun,” and Styles,
of the ^‘Forest and Stream,” Parsons, the
Superintendent of Central Park, and Mat¬
thews, Mayor of Boston. Yesterday the Mayor
came with carriages and drove us through the
public parks and the most interesting streets of
Boston, and he and Mr. and Mrs. Sargent drove
to the station and saw us off. While making
Sargent’s our headquarters, Mr. Johnson took
me to Cambridge, where we saw the classic old
shades of learning, found Royce, who guided
us, saw Porter, and the historian Parkman,

270

TREES AND TRAVEL

etc., etc. We called at Eliotts house, but he was
away.

We also went to the seaside at Manchester,
forty miles or so from Boston, to visit Mrs.
[James T.] Fields, a charming old lady, and how
good a time! Sarah Orne Jewett was there, and
all was delightful. Here, of course, Johnson
made me tell that dog story as if that were the
main result of glacial action and all my studies,
but I got in a good deal of ice-work better than
this, and never had better listeners.

Judge Howland, whom I met in Yosemite
with a party who had a special car, came in
since I began this letter to invite me to a dinner
to-morrow evening with a lot of his friends. I
must get that article done and set the day of
sailing for Europe, or I won^t get away at all.
This makes three dinners ahead already. I fear
the tail of my article will be of another color
from the body. Johnson has been most devoted
to me ever since I arrived, and I can^t make
him stop. I think I told you the Century^’
wants to publish my book. They also want me
to write articles from Europe.

Must stop. Love to all. How glad I was to
get Wanda’s long good letter this morning,
dated June 2! All letters in Johnson’s care will
find me wherever I go, here or in Europe.

[John Muie]

271

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs, Muir

Dunbar, Scotland
July 6, 1893

Dear Louie :

I left Liverpool Monday morning, reached
Edinburgh early the same day, went to a hotel,
and then went to the old book-publisher David
Douglas, to whom Johnson had given me a
letter. He is a very solemn-looking, dignified
old Scotchman of the old school, an intimate
friend and crony of John Brown, who wrote
^^Rab and His Friends, knew Hugh Miller,
Walter Scott, and indeed all the literary men,
and was the publisher of Dean Ramsay^s
^^Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Char¬
acter,^^ etc. He had heard of me through my
writings, and, after he knew who I was, burst
forth into the warmest cordiality and became a
perfect gushing fountain of fun, humor, and
stories of the old Scotch writers. Tuesday
morning he took me in hand, and led me over
Edinburgh, took me to all the famous places
celebrated in Scott^s novels, went around the
Calton Hill and the Castle, into the old
churches so full of associations, to Queen
Mary’s Palace Museum, and I don’t know how
many other places.

In the evening I dined with him, and had a
glorious time. He showed me his literary treas-

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TREES AND TRAVEL

ures and curiosities, told endless anecdotes of
John Brown, Walter Scott, Hugh Miller, etc.,
while I, of course, told my icy tales until very
late — or early — the most wonderful night
as far as humanity is concerned I ever had in
the world. Yesterday forenoon he took me out
for another walk and filled me with more won¬
ders. His kindness and warmth of heart, once
his confidence is gained, are boundless. From
feeling lonely and a stranger in my own native
land, he brought me back into quick and living
contact with it, and now I am a Scotchman
and at home again.

In the afternoon I took the train for Dunbar
and in an hour was in my own old town. There
was no carriage from the Lome Hotel that
used to be our home, so I took the one from the
St. George, which I remember well as Cossar^s
Inn that I passed every day on my way to
school. But I’m going to the Lome, if for
nothing else [than] to take a look at that
dormer window I climbed in my nightgown,
to see what kind of an adventure it really
was.

I sauntered down the street and went into a
store on which I saw the sign Melville, and soon
found that the proprietor was an old playmate
of mine, and he was, of course, delighted to see
me. He had been reading my articles, and said

273

JOHN MUIR

he had taken great pride in tracing my progress
through the far-off wildernesses. Then I went
to William Comb, mother^s old friend, who was
greatly surprised, no doubt, to see that I had
changed in forty years. ^^And this is Johnnie
Muir! Bless me, when I saw ye last ye were
naething but a small mischievous lad.’’ He is
very deaf, unfortunately, and was very busy.
I am to see him again to-day.

Next I went in search of Mrs. Lunam, my
cousin, and found her and her daughter in
a very pretty home half a mile from town.
They were very cordial, and are determined
to get me away from the hotel. I spent
the evening there talking family affairs, auld
lang syne, glaciers, wild gardens, adventures,
etc., till after eleven, then returned to the
hotel.

Here are a few flowers that I picked on the
Castle hill on my walk with Douglas, for
Helen and Wanda. I pray Heaven in the midst
of my pleasure that you are all well. Edin¬
burgh is, apart from its glorious historical as¬
sociations, far the most beautiful town I ever
saw. I cannot conceive how it could be more
beautiful. In the very heart of it rises the great
Castle hill, glacier-sculptured and wild like a
bit of Alaska in the midst of the most beautiful
architecture to be found in the world. I wish

274

TREES AND TRAVEL

you could see it, and you will when the babies
grow up. . . .

Good-bye.

J. M.

To Helen Muir

Dunbar, Scotland
July 12, 1893

Hello, Midge, my sweet Helen:

Are you all right? I^m in Scotland now, where
I used to live when I was a little boy, and I saw
the places where I used to play and the house
I used to live in. I remember it pretty well,
and the school where the teacher used to whip
me so much, though I tried to be good all the
time and learn my lessons. The round tower
on the hill in the picture at the beginning of the
letter is one of the places I used to play at on
Saturdays when there was no school.

Here is a little sprig of heather a man gave
me yesterday and another for Wanda. The
heather is just beginning to come into bloom.
I have not seen any of it growing yet, and I
don^t know where the man found it. But I^m
going pretty soon up the mountains, and then
Ill find lots of it, and won’t it be lovely, miles
and miles of it, covering whole mountains and
making them look purple. I think I must camp
out in the heather.

275

JOHN MUIR

I^m going to come home just as soon as I get
back from Switzerland, about the time the
grapes are ripe, I expect. I wish I could see you,
' my little love.

Your papa

John Muir

To Mrs. Muir

Dunbae, Scotland
July 12, 1893

Dear Louie:

I have been here nearly a week and have seen
most of my old haunts and playgrounds, and
more than I expected of my boy playmates.
Of course it is all very interesting, and I have
enjoyed it more than I anticipated. Dunbar is
an interesting place to anybody, beautifully
located on a plateau above the sea and with a
background of beautiful hills and dales, green
fields in the very highest state of cultivation,
and many belts and blocks of woods so ar¬
ranged as to appear natural. I have had a good
many rides and walks into the country among
the fine farms and towns and old castles, and
had long talks with people who listen with
wonder to the stories of California and far
Alaska.

I suppose, of course, you have received my
Edinburgh letter telling the fine time with

276

TREES AND TRAVEL

David Douglas. I mean to leave here next
Monday for the Highlands, and then go to
Norway and Switzerland.

I am stopping with my cousin, who, with
her daughter, lives in a handsome cottage just
outside of town. They are very cordial and
take me to all the best places and people, and
pet me in grand style, but I must on and away
or my vacation time will be past ere I leave
Scotland.

At Haddington I visited Jeanie Welch
Carlyle^s grave in the old abbey. Here are two
daisies, or gowans, that grew beside it.

I was on a visit yesterday to a farmer^s fam¬
ily three miles from town — friends of the Lu-
nams. This was a fine specimen of the gentle¬
man-farmers’ places and people in this, the
best part of Scotland. How fine the grounds
are, and the buildings and the people ! . . .

I begin to think I shall not see Keith again
until I get back, except by accident, for I have
no time to hunt him up; but anyhow I am not
so lonesome as I was and with David Douglas’s
assistance will make out to find my way to fair
advantage.

The weather here reminds me of Alaska, cool
and rather damp. Nothing can surpass the
exquisite fineness and wealth of the farm crops,
while the modulation of the ground stretching

277

JOHN MUIR

away from the rocky, foamy coast to the green
Lammermoor Hills is charming. Among other
famous places I visited the old castle of the
Bride of Lammermoor and the field of the bat¬
tle of Dunbar. Besides, I find fine glacial
studies everywhere.

I fondly hope you are all well while I am cut
off from news.

Ever yours

John Muir

To Wanda Muir

Dunbar, Scotland
July 13, 1893

Dear Wanda:

It is about ten o’clock in the forenoon here,
but no doubt you are still asleep, for it is about
midnight at Martinez, and sometimes when it
is to-day here it is yesterday in California on
account of being on opposite sides of the round
world. But one’s thoughts travel fast, and I
seem to be in California whenever I think of
you and Helen. I suppose you are busy with
your lessons and peaches, peaches especially.
You are now a big girl, almost a woman, and
you must mind your lessons and get in a good
store of the best words of the best people while
your memory is retentive, and then you will go
through the world rich.

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TREES AND TRAVEL

Ask mother to give you lessons to commit to
memory every day. Mostly the sayings of
Christ in the gospels and selections from the
poets. Find the hymn of praise in Paradise
Lost These are thy glorious works, Parent of
Good, Almighty,’^ and learn it well.

Last evening, after writing to Helen, I took
a walk with Maggie Lunam along the shore on
the rocks where I played when a boy. The
waves made a grand show breaking in sheets
and sheaves of foam, and grand songs, the same
old songs they sang to me in my childhood, and
I seemed a boy again and all the long eventful
years in America were forgotten while I was
filled with that glorious ocean psalm.

Tell Maggie I^m going to-day to see Miss
Jaffry, the minister’s daughter who went to
school with us. And tell mamma that the girl
Agnes Purns, that could outrun me, married a
minister and is now a widow living near
Prestonpans. I may see her. Good-bye, dear.
Give my love to grandma and everybody.

Your loving father

John Muir

279

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs. Muir

Station Hotel, Oban, N.B.

Jvly 22, 1893

Dear Louie:

I stayed about ten days at Dunbar, thinking
I should not slight my old home and cousins.
I found an extra cousin in Dunbar, Jane
Mather, that I had not before heard of, and
she is one to be proud of, as are the Lunams.
I also found a few of the old schoolmates, now
gray old men, older-looking, I think, and
grayer than I, though I have led so hard a life.
I went with Maggie Lunam to the old school-
house where I was so industriously thrashed
half a century ago. The present teacher, Mr.
Dick, got the school two years after I left, and
has held it ever since. He had been reading
the Century,’’ and was greatly interested. I
dined with him and at table one of the guests
said, ‘^Mr. Dick, don’t you wish you had the
immortal glory of having whipped John Muir?”

I made many short trips into the country,
along the shores, about the old castle, etc.
Then I went back to Edinburgh, and then to
Dumfries, Burns’s country for some years,
where I found another cousin, Susan Gilroy,
with whom I had a good time. Then I went
through Glasgow to Stirling, where I had a
charming walk about the castle and saw the

280

TREES AND TRAVEL

famous battle-field, Bruce^s and Wallace's
monuments, and glacial action.

This morning I left Stirling and went to
Callander, thence to Inversnaid by coach and
boat, by the Trossachs and Loch Katrine,
thence through Loch Lomond and the moun¬
tains to a railroad and on to this charming
Oban. I have just arrived this day on Lochs
Katrine and Lomond, and the drives through
the passes and over the mountains made fa¬
mous by Scott in the ^^Lady of the Lake’’ will
be long remembered — Ower the muir amang
the heather.”

The heather is just coming into bloom and it
is glorious. Wish I could camp in it a month.
All the scenery is interesting, but nothing like
Alaska or California in grandeur. To-morrow
I’m going back to Edinburgh and next morning
intend to start for Norway, where I will write.

Possibly I may not be able to catch the boat,
but guess I will. Thence I’ll return to Edin¬
burgh and then go to Switzerland. Love to all.
Dear Wanda and Helen, here is some bell
heather for you.

Ever yours

J. M.

281

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs. Muir

Euston Hotel, London
September 1, 1893

Dear Louie:

Yesterday afternoon I went to the home of
Sir Joseph Hooker at Sunningdale with him
and his family. ... Now I am done with Lon¬
don and shall take the morning express to
Edinburgh to-morrow, go thence to the High¬
lands and see the heather in full bloom, visit
some friends, and go back to Dunbar for a
day. . . .

I have been at so many places and have seen
so much that is new, the time seems immensely
long since I left you. Sir Joseph and his lady
were very cordial. They have a charming
country residence, far wilder and more retired
than ours, though within twenty-five miles of
London. We had a long delightful talk last
evening on science and scientific men, and this
forenoon and afternoon long walks and talks
through the groimds and over the adjacent
hills. Altogether this has been far the most
interesting day I have had since leaving home.
I never knew before that Sir Joseph had ac¬
companied Ross in his famous Antarctic ex¬
pedition as naturalist. He showed me a large
number of sketches he made of the great ice¬
cap, etc., and gave me many facts concerning

282

TREES AND TRAVEL

that little known end of the world entirely new
to me. Long talks, too, about Huxley, Tyndall,
Darwin, Sir Charles Lyell, Asa Gray, etc. My,
what a time we had! I never before knew
either that he had received the Copley Medal,
the highest scientific honor in the world.

I hope to hear from you again before sailing,
as I shall order my mail forwarded from Lon¬
don the last thing. I feel that my trip is now
all but done, though I have a good many people
to see and small things to do, ere I leave. The
hills in full heather bloom, however, is not a
small thing.

Much love John Muir

To Helen Muir

Killarney, Ireland
September 7, 1893

My own dear Helen:

After papa left London he went to the top
of Scotland to a place called Thurso, where
a queer Scotch geologist [Robert Dick] once
lived; hundreds of miles thereabouts were
covered with heather in full bloom. Then I
went to Inverness and down the canal to Oban
again. Then to Glasgow and then to Ireland
to see the beautiful bogs and lakes and Mac-
gillicuddy^s Reeks. Now I must make haste to¬
morrow back towards Scotland and get ready

283

JOHN MUIR

to sail to New York on the big ship Campania,
which leaves Liverpool on the sixteenth day of
this month, and then Ill soon see darling Helen
again. Papa is tired traveling so much, and
wishes he was home again, though he has seen
many beautiful and wonderful places, and
learned a good deal about glaciers and moun¬
tains and things. It is very late, and I must go
to bed. Kiss everybody for me, my sweet
darling, and soon I^U be home.

[John Muir]

To James and Hardy Hay

CuNARD Royal Mail Steamship Campania

September 16, 1893

James and Hardy Hay
and all the glorious company
about them, young and old.

Dear Cousins:

I am now fairly aff and awa’ from the old
home to the new, from friends to friends, and
soon the braid sea will again roar between us;
but be assured, however far I go in sunny Cal¬
ifornia or icy Alaska, I shall never cease to love
and admire you, and I hope that now and then
you will think of your lonely kinsman, whether
in my bright home in the Golden State or
plodding after God^s glorious glaciers in the
storm-beaten mountains of the North.

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TREES AND TRAVEL

Among all the memories that I carry away
with me this eventful summer none stand out
in so divine a light as the friends I have found
among my own kith and kin: Hays, Mathers,
Lunams, Gilroys. In particular I have enjoyed
and admired the days spent with the Lunams
and you Hays. Happy, Godful homes; again
and again while with you I repeated to myself
those lines of Burns: ^^From scenes like these
old Scotia’s grandeur springs, that makes her
loved at home, revered abroad.”

Don’t forget me and if in this changing world
you or yours need anything in it that I can give,
be sure to call on

Your loving and admiring cousin

John Muir

From George W. Cable

Dryads^ Green
Northampton, Massachusetts
December 18, 1893

My dear Mr. Muir:

I am only now really settled down at home
for a stay of a few weeks. I wanted to have sent
to you long ago the book I mail now and which
you kindly consented to accept from me —
Lanier’s poems. There are in Lanier such won¬
derful odors of pine, and hay, and salt sands
and cedar, and corn, and such whisperings of

285

JOHN MUIR

Eolian strains and every outdoor sound — I
think you would have had great joy in one an¬
other's personal acquaintance.

And this makes me think how much I have
in yours. Your face and voice, your true, rich
words, are close to my senses now as I write,
and I cry hungrily for more. The snow is on us
everywhere now, and as I look across the white,
crusted waste I see such mellowness of yellow
sunlight and long blue and purple shadows that
I want some adequate manly partnership to
help me reap the rapture of such beauty. In
one place a stretch of yellow grass standing
above the snow or blown clear of it glows
golden in the slant light. The heavens are blue
as my love’s eyes and the elms are black lace
against their infinite distance.

Last night I walked across the frozen white
under a moonlight and starhght that made the
way seem through the wastes of a stellar uni¬
verse and not along the surface of one poor
planet.

Write and tell me, I pray you, what those
big brothers of yours, the mountains, have been
saying to you of late. It will compensate in
part, but only in part, for the absence of your
spoken words.

Yours truly

286

G. W. Cable

TREES AND TRAVEL

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, Ayril 3, 1894
My dear Mr. Johnson:

The book, begotten Heaven knows when, is
finished and out of me, therefore hurrah, etc.,
and thanks to you, very friend, for benevolent
prodding. Six of the sixteen chapters are new,
and the others are nearly so, for I have worked
hard on every one of them, leaning them against
each other, adding lots of new stuff, and killing
adjectives and adverbs of redundant growth —
the verySj intenses, gloriouses, ands, and huts,
by the score. I feel sure the little alpine thing
will not disappoint you. Anyhow I Ve done the
best I could. Read the opening chapter when
you have time. In it I have ventured to drop
into the poetry that I like, but have taken good
care to place it between bluffs and buttresses
of bald, glacial, geological facts.

Mrs. Muir keeps asking me whether it is
possible to get Johnson to come out here this
summer. She seems to regard you as a Polish
brother. Why, I’ll be hanged if I know. I al¬
ways thought you too cosmically good to be of
any clannish nation. By the way, during these
last months of abnormal cerebral activity I
have written another article for the “Century’^
which I’ll send you soon.

287

John Muir

JOHN MUIR

The book mentioned in the preceding letter
was his Mountains of California/’ which ap¬
peared in the autunm of 1894 from the press
of the Century Company. take pleasure in
sending you with this a copy of my first book/’
he wrote to his old friend Mrs. Carr. You will
say that I should have written it long ago; but
I begrudged the time of my young mountain¬
climbing days.” To a Scotch cousin, Margaret
Hay Lunam, he characterized it as one in which
he had tried to describe and explain what a
traveler would see for himself if he were to
come to California and go over the mountain-
ranges and through the forests as he had done.

The warmth of appreciation with which the
book was received by the most thoughtful men
and women of his time did much to stimulate
him to further literary effort. His friend
Charles S. Sargent, director of the Arnold Ar¬
boretum, then at work upon his great work
^^The Silva of North America,” wrote as
follows: ^‘1 am reading your Sierra book and I
want to tell you that I have never read de¬
scriptions of trees that so picture them to the
mind as yours do. No fellow who was at once a
poet, naturalist, and keen observer has to my
knowledge ever written about trees before, and
I believe you are the man who ought to have
written a silva of North America. Your book

288

TREES AND TRAVEL

is one of the great productions of its kind and
I congratulate you on it.’^

Equally enthusiastic was the great English
botanist J. D. Hooker. have just finished
the last page of your delightful volume/^ he
wrote from his home at Sunningdale, and can
therefore thank you with a full heart. I do not
know when I have read anything that I have
enjoyed more. It has brought California back
to my memory with redoubled interest, and
with more than redoubled knowledge. Above
all it has recalled half-forgotten scientific facts,
geology, geography, and vegetation that I
used to see when in California and which I have
often tried to formulate in vain. Most espe¬
cially this refers to glacial features and to the
conifers; and recalling them has recalled the
scenes and surroundings in which I first heard
them.’’

The acclaim of the book by reviewers was so
enthusiastic that the first edition was soon ex¬
hausted. It was his intention to bring out at
once another volume devoted to the Yosemite
Valley in particular. With this task he busied
himseK in 1895, revisiting during the summer
his old haunts at the headwaters of the Tuol-
mnne and passing once more alone through
the canon to Hetch-Hetchy Valley. As in the
old days he carried no blanket and a minimum

289

JOHN MUIR

of provisions, so that he had only a handful of
crackers and a pinch of tea left when he reached
Hetch-Hetchy. “The bears were very numer¬
ous,’^ he wrote to his wife on August 17th,
“this being berry time in the canon. But they
gave no trouble, as I knew they wouldn’t.
Only in tangled underbrush I had to shout a
good deal to avoid coming suddenly on them.’^
Having no food when he reached Hetch-
Hetchy, he set out to cover the twenty miles
from there to Crocker’s on foot, but had gone
only a few miles when he met on the trail two
strangers and two well-laden pack-animals.
The leader, T. P. Lukens, asked his name, and
then told him that he had come expressly to
meet John Muir in the hope that he might go
back with him into Hetch-Hetchy. “On the
banks of the beautiful river beneath a Kellogg
oak” the bonds of a new mountain friendship
were sealed while beautiful days rolled by un¬
noticed. “I am fairly settled at home again,”
he wrote to his aged mother on his return, “and
the six weeks of mountaineering of this sum¬
mer in my old haunts are over, and now live
only in memory and notebooks like all the
other weeks in the Sierra. But how much I en¬
joyed this excursion, or indeed any excursion
in the wilderness, I am not able to tell. I must
have been born a mountaineer and the chmbs

290

TREES AND TRAVEL

and ^scootchers^ of boyhood days about the
old Dunbar Castle and on the roof of our house
made fair beginnings. I suppose old age will
put an end to scrambling in rocks and ice, but
I can still climb as well as ever. I am trying
to write another book, but that is harder than
mountaineering. ’ ’

During the spring of the following year, Mr.
Johnson saw some article on Muir which moved
him to ask whether he had ever been offered a
professorship at Harvard, and whether Pro¬
fessor Louis Agassiz had declared him to be
^Hhe only living man who understood glacial
action in the formation of scenery.’^

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, May 3, 1895
My dear Mr. Johnson:

To both your questions the answer is, No.
I hate this personal rubbish, and I have always
sheltered myself as best I could in the thickest
shade I could find, celebrating only the glory
of God as I saw it in nature.

The foundations for the insignificant stories
' you mention are, as far as I know, about as
follows. More than twenty years ago Pro¬
fessor Runkle was in Yosemite, and I took him
into the adjacent wilderness and, of course,
night and day preached to him the gospel of

291

JOHN MUIR

glaciers. When he went away he urged me to
go with him, saying that the Institute of Tech¬
nology in Boston was the right place for me,
that I could have the choice of several profes¬
sorships there, and every facility for fitting
myself for the duties required, etc., etc.

Then came Emerson and more preaching.
He said. Don’t tarry too long in the woods.
Listen for the word of your guardian angel.
You are needed by the young men in our col¬
leges. Solitude is a sublime mistress, but an
intolerable wife. When Heaven gives the sign,
leave the mountains, come to my house and
live with me until you are tired of me and then
I will show you to better people.

Then came Gray and more fine rambles and
sermons. He said. When you get ready, come
to Harvard. You have good and able and en¬
thusiastic friends there and we will gladly push
you ahead, etc., etc. So much for Ha-a-a-rvard.^
But you must surely know that I never for a
moment thought of leaving God’s big show for
a mere profship, call who may.

The Agassiz sayings you refer to are more
nearly true than the college ones. Yosemite
was my home when Agassiz was in San Fran¬
cisco, and I never saw him. When he was there
I wrote him a long icy letter, telling what glo¬
rious things I had to show him and urging him

292

TREES AND TRAVEL

to come to the mountains. The reply to this
letter was written by Mrs. Agassiz, in which she
told me that, when Agassiz read my letter, he
said excitedly, ^^Here is the first man I have
ever found who has any adequate conception
of glacial action.” Also that he told her to say
in reply to my invitation that if he should ac¬
cept it now he could not spend more than six
weeks with me at most. That he would rather
go home now, but next year he would come
and spend all summer with me. But, as you
know, he went home to die.

Shortly afterward I came down out of my
haunts to Oakland and there met Joseph
LeConte, whom I had led to the Lyell Glacier
a few months before Agassiz’s arrival. He
(LeConte) told me that, in the course of a con¬
versation with Agassiz on the geology of the
Sierra, he told him that a young man by the
name of Muir studying up there perhaps knew
more about the glaciation of the Sierra than
any one else. To which Agassiz replied warmly,
and bringing his fist down on the table, ^^He
knows all about it.” Now there! You’ve got
it all, and what a mess of mere J. M. you’ve
made me write. Don’t you go and publish it.
Burn it.

Ever cordially yours

John Muir

293

JOHN MUm

What of the summer day now dawning? Re¬
member you have a turn at the helm. How are
you going to steer? How fares Tesla and the
auroral lightning? Shall we go to icy Alaska
or to the peaks and streets and taluses of the
Sierra? That was a good strong word you said
for the vanishing forests.

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, September 12, 1895
My dear Mr. Johnson:

I have just got home from a six weeks’
ramble in the Yosemite and Yosemite National
Park. For three years the soldiers have kept
the sheepmen and sheep out of the park, and I
looked sharply at the ground to learn the value
of the mihtary influence on the small and great
flora. On the sloping portions of the forest
floor, where the soil was loose and friable, the
vegetation has not yet recovered from the dib¬
bling and destructive action of the sheep feet
and teeth. But where a tough sod on meadows
was spread, the grasses and blue gentians and
erigerons are again blooming in all their wild
glory.

The sheepmen are more than matched by the
few troopers in this magnificent park, and the
wilderness rejoices in fresh verdure and bloom.
Only the Yosemite itself in the middle of the

294

TREES AND TRAVEL

grand park is downtrodden, frowsy, and like an
abandoned backwoods pasture. No part of the
Merced and Tuolumne wilderness is so dusty,
downtrodden, abandoned, and pathetic as the
Yosemite. It looks ten times worse now than
when you saw it seven years ago. Most of the
level meadow floor of the Valley is fenced with
barbed and unbarbed wire and about three
hundred head of horses are , turned loose every
night to feed and trample the flora out of ex¬
istence. I told the hotel and horsemen that
they were doing all they could to prevent lovers
of wild beauties from visiting the Valley, and
that soon all tourist travel would cease. This
year only twelve hundred regular tourists vis¬
ited the Valley, while two thousand campers
came in and remained a week or two. . . .

I have little hope for Yosemite. As long as
the management is in the hands of eight pohti-
cians appointed by the ever-changing Governor
of California, there is but little hope. I never
saw the Yosemite so frowsy, scrawny, and
downtrodden as last August, and the horsemen
began to inquire, ^‘Has the Yosemite begun to
play out? . .

Ever yours

John Muir

At the June Commencement in 1896, Har-

295

JOHN MUIR

vard bestowed upon Muir an honorary M. A.
degree.^ The offer of the honor came just as he
was deciding, moved by a strange presentiment
of her impending death, to pay another visit
to his mother. Among Muir’s papers, evidently
intended for his autobiography, I find the fol¬
lowing description of the incident under the
heading of Mysterious Things”:

As in the case of father^s death, while seated at
work in my library in California in the spring of
1896, I was suddenly possessed with the idea that
I ought to go back to Portage, Wisconsin, to see my
mother once more, as she was not likely to hve
long, though I had not heard that she was failing.
I had not sent word that I was coming. Two of her
daughters were living with her at the time, and,
when one of them happened to see me walking up
to the house through the garden, she came running
out, saying, ‘^John, God must have sent you, be¬
cause mother is very sick.^^ I was with her about a
week before she died, and managed to get my
brother Daniel, the doctor, to come down from Ne¬
braska to be with her. He insisted that he knew my
mother’s case very well, and didn’t think that there
was the slightest necessity for his coming. I told
him I thought he would never see her again if he
didn’t come, and he would always regret neglecting

^ President Eliot’s salutation, spoken in Latin, was as
follows; “Johannem Muir, lo corum incognitorum explora-
torem insignem; fluminum qui sunt in Alaska serratisque
montibus conglaciatorum studiosum; diligentem silvarum et
rerum agrestium ferarumque indagatorem, artium magis-
trum.”

296

TREES AND TRAVEL

this last duty to mother, and finally succeeded in
getting him to come. But brother David and my
two eldest sisters, who had since father’s death
moved to California, were not present.

The following letter gives a brief summary
of his Eastern experiences up to the time when
he joined the Forestry Commission in Chicago.
It should be added that Muir went along un¬
officially at the invitation of C. S. Sargent, the
Chairman of the Commission. Of the epochal
work of this Commission and Muir’s relation
to it, more later.

To Helen Muir

S.W. Cor. LaSalle and Washington Streets
Chicago, July 3d, 1896

My dear little Helen:

I have enjoyed your sweet, bright, illus¬
trated letters ever and ever so much; both the
words and the pictures made me see everything
at home as if I was there myself — the peaches,
and the purring pussies, and the blue herons
flying about, and all the people working and
walking about and talking and guessing on the
weather.

So many things have happened since I left
home, and I have seen so many people and
places and have traveled so fast and far, I have
lost the measure of time, and it seems more

297

JOHN MUIR

than a year since I left home. Oh, dear! how
tired I have been and excited and swirly!
Sometimes my head felt so benumbed, I hardly
knew where I was. And yet everything done
seems to have been done for the best, and I
believe God has been guiding us. . . .

I went to New York and then up the Hudson
a hundred miles to see John Burroughs and
Professor Osborn, to escape being sunstruck
and choked in the horrid weather of the streets;
and then, refreshed, I got back to New York
and started for Boston and Cambridge and got
through the Harvard business all right and
caught a fast train . . . back to Portage in time
for the funeral. Then I stopped three or four
days to settle all the business and write to
Scotland, and comfort Sarah and Annie and
Mary; then I ran down a half-day to Madison,
and went to Milwaukee and stayed a night
with William Trout, with whom I used to live
in a famous hollow in the Canada woods thirty
years ago. Next day I went to Indianapolis
and saw everybody there and stopped with
them one night. Then came here last night and
stopped with [A. H.] Sellers. I am now in his
office awaiting the arrival of the Forestry Com¬
mission, with whom I expect to start West to¬
night at half-past ten o’clock. It is now about
noon. I feel that this is the end of the strange

298-

TREES AND TRAVEL

lot of events I have been talking about, for
when I reach the Rocky Mountains Ill feel at
home. I saw a wonderful lot of squirrels at
Osbornes, and Mrs. Osborn wants you and
Wanda and Mamma to visit her and stay a
long time.

Good-bye, darling, and give my love to
Wanda and Mamma and Grandma and Maggie.
Go over and comfort Maggie and tell Mamma
to write to poor Sarah. Tell Mamma I spent a
long evening with [Nicola] Tesla and I found
him quite a wonderful and interesting fellow.

[John Muie]

To Wanda Muir

Hot Springs, S.D.

July 5th, 1896

My deak Wanda:

I am now fairly on my way West again, and
a thousand miles nearer you than I was a few
days ago. We got here this morning, after a
long ride from Chicago. By we I mean Pro¬
fessors Sargent, Brewer, Hague, and General
Abbot — all interesting wise men and grand
company. It was dreadfully hot the day we
left Chicago, but it rained before morning of
the 4th, and so that day was dustless and cool,
and the ride across Iowa was delightful. That
State is very fertile and beautiful. The corn¬
fields and wheatfields are boundless, or appear

299

JOHN MUIR

so as we skim through them on the cars, and
all are rich and bountiful-looking. Flowers
in bloom line the roads, and tall grasses and
bushes. The surface of the ground is rolling,
with hills beyond hills, many of them crowned
with trees. I never before knew that Iowa was
so beautiful and inexhaustibly rich.

Nebraska is monotonously level like a green
grassy sea — no hills or mountains in sight for
hundreds of miles. Here, too, are cornfields
without end and full of promise this year, after
three years of famine from drouth.

South Dakota, by the way we came, is dry
and desert-like until you get into the Black
Hills. The latter get their name from the dark
color they have in the distance from the pine
forests that cover them. The pine of these
woods is the ponderosa or yellow pine, the same
as the one that grows in the Sierra, Oregon,
Washington, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Mon¬
tana, Idaho, Wyoming, and all the West in
general. No other pine in the world has so
wide a range or is so hardy at all heights and
under all circumstances and conditions of ch-
mate and soil. This is near its eastern limit,
and here it is interesting to find that many
plants of the Atlantic and Pacific slopes meet
and grow well together. . . .

300

[John Muir]

TREES AND TRAVEL

To Helen and Wanda Muir

Sylvan Lake Hotel
Custer, S.D., July 6, 1896

Hello, Midge! Hello, Wanda!

My!! if you could only come here when I
call you how wonderful you would think this
hollow in the rocky Black Hills is! It is won¬
derful even to me after seeing so many wild
mountains — curious rocks rising alone or in
clusters, gray and jagged and rounded in the
midst of a forest of pines and spruces and pop¬
lars and birches, with a little lake in the middle
and carpet of meadow gay with flowers. It is
in the heart of the famous Black Hills where
the Indians and Whites quarreled and fought so
much. The whites wanted the gold in the
rocks, and the Indians wanted the game —
the deer and elk that used to abound here. As
a grand deer pasture this was said to have been
the best in America, and no wonder the Indians
wanted to keep it, for wherever the white man
goes the game vanishes.

We came here this forenoon from Hot Springs,
fifty miles by rail and twelve by wagon. And
most of the way was through woods fairly
carpeted with beautiful flowers. A lovely red
lily, Lilium Pennsylvanicunij was common, two
kinds of spiraea and a beautiful wild rose in
full bloom, anemones, calochortus, larkspur,

301

JOHN MUIR

etc., etc., far beyond time to tell. But I must
not fail to mention linnsea. How sweet the air
is! I would like to stop a long time and have
you and Mamma with me. What walks we
would have!!

We leave to-night for Edgemont. Here are
some mica flakes and a bit of spiraea I picked
up in a walk witli Professor Sargent.

Good-bye, my babes. Sometime I must
bring you here. I send love and hope you are
well.

John Muir

The following letter expresses Muir^s stand
in the matter of the recession of Yosemite
Valley by the State of California to the Federal
Government. The mismanagement of the Val¬
ley under ever-changing pohtical appointees of
the various Governors had become a national
scandal, and Muir was determined that, in
spite of some objectors, the Sierra Club should
have an opportunity to express itself on the
issue. The bill for recession was reported
favorably in the California Assembly in Feb¬
ruary, but it encountered so much pettifogging
and politically inspired opposition that it was
not actually passed until 1905.

302

TREES AND TRAVEL

To Warren Olney, Sr,

Maktinez, January 18, 1897

My dear Olney:

I think with you that a resolution like the
one you offered the other day should be thor¬
oughly studied and discussed before final action
is taken and a close approximation made to
unanimity, if possible. Still, I donT see that
one or two objectors should have the right to
kill all action of the Club in this or any other
matter rightly belonging to it. Professor
Davidson^s objection is also held by Professor
LeConte, or was, but how they can consistently
sing praise to the Federal Government in the
management of the National Parks, and at the
same time regard the same management of
Yosemite as degrading to the State, I can’t see.
For my part, I’m proud of California and
prouder of Uncle Sam, for the U.S. is all of
California and more. And as to our Secretary’s
objection, it seemed to me merely political, and
if the Sierra Club is to be run by pohticians, the
sooner moimtaineers get out of it the better.
Fortunately, the matter is not of first impor¬
tance, but now it has been raised, I shall insist
on getting it squarely before the Club. I had
given up the question as a bad job, but so
many of our members have urged it lately I
now regard its discussion as a duty of the Club.

John Muir

CHAPTER XVII

UNTO THE LAST
I

1897-1905

Though little evidence of the fact appears in
extant letters, the year 1897 was one of great
importance in Muir’s career. So significant,
indeed, was his work in defending ^ the recom¬
mendations of the National Forest Commission
of 1896 that we must reserve fuller discussion
of it for a chapter on Muir’s service to the
nation. With the exception of his story of the
dog Stickeen and a vivid description of an
Alaska trip, appearing respectively in the Au¬
gust and September numbers of the Century,”
nearly the entire output of his pen that year
was devoted to the saving of the thirteen forest
reservations proclaimed by President Cleve¬
land on the basis of the Forest Commission’s
report.

During the month of August he joined Pro¬
fessor C. S. Sargent and Mr. William M. Canby
on an expedition to study forest trees in the

^ This service was specially recognized in 1897 by the Uni¬
versity of Wisconsin, his alma mater, in the bestowal of an
LL.D. degree.

304

UNTO THE LAST

Rocky Mountains and in Alaska. To this and
other matters allusion is made in the following
excerpt from a November letter to Professor
Henry Fairfield Osborn.

I spent a short time [he writes] in the Rocky
Mountain forests between Banff and Glacier with
Professor Sargent and Mr. Canby, and then we
went to Alaska, mostly by the same route you trav¬
eled. We were on the Queen and had your state¬
rooms. The weather was not so fine as during your
trip. The glorious color we so enjoyed on the upper
deck was wanting, but the views of the noble peaks
of the Fairweather Range were sublime. They were
perfectly clear, and loomed in the azure, ice-laden
and white, like very gods. Canby and Sargent were
lost in admiration as if they had got into a perfectly
new world, and so they had, old travelers though
they are.

I Ve been writing about the forests, mostly, doing
what little I can to save them. “ Harper ^s Weekly” ^
and the Atlantic Monthly” have published some¬
thing; the latter published an article ^ last August.
I sent another two weeks ago and am pegging away
on three others for the same magazine on the na¬
tional parks — Yellowstone, Yosemite, and Sequoia
— and I want this winter to try some more Alaska.
But I make slow, hard work of it — slow and hard
as glaciers. . . . When are you coming again to our
wild side of the continent and how goes your big
book? I suppose it will be about as huge as Sargent’s

Silva.”

' “Forest Reservations and National Parks,” June 5, 1897.

* “American Forests.”

305

JOHN MUIR

One of the pleasant by-products of Muir^s
spirited defense of the reservations was the be¬
ginning of a warm friendship with the late
Walter Hines Page, then editor of the At¬
lantic/’ The latter, like Robert Underwood
Johnson, stimulated his literary productiveness
and was largely responsible for his final choice
of Houghton, Mifflin & Company as his pub¬
lishers. Some years later, in 1905, Mr. and
Mrs. Page paid a visit to Muir at his home in
the Alhambra Valley. The articles contributed
to the Atlantic” during the nineties were in
1901 brought out in book form under the title
of ^^Our National Parks.”

Apropos of Muir’s apologetic references to
the fact that he found writing a slow, hard task,
Page remarked: “1 thank God that you do not
write in glib, acrobatic fashion: anybody can do
that. Half the people in the world are doing it
all the time, to my infinite regret and confu¬
sion. . . . The two books on the Parks and on
Alaska will not need any special season’s sales,
nor other accidental circumstances: they’ll be
Literature!” On another occasion, in October,
1897, Page writes: '^Mr. John Burroughs has
been spending a little while with me, and he
talks about nothing else so earnestly as about
you and your work. He declares in the most
emphatic fashion that it will be a misfortune

306

UNTO THE LAST

too great to estimate if you do not write up all
those bags of notes which you have gathered.
He encourages me, to put it in his own words,
to ^keep firing at him, keep firing at him.’’’

In February, 1898, Professor Sargent wrote
Muir that he was in urgent need of the flowers
of the red fir to be used for an illustrative
plate in his Silva.” The following letter is in
part a report on Muir’s first futile effort to
secure them. Ten days later, above Deer Park
in the Tahoe region, he succeeded in finding
and collecting specimens of both pistillate and
staminate flowers, which up to that time, ac¬
cording to Sargent, '^did not exist in any her¬
barium in this country or in Europe.”

I

To Charles Sprague Sargent

Martinez, June 7, 1898
My dear Professor Sargent:

Yesterday I returned from a week’s trip to
Shasta and the Scott Moimtains for [Abies]
magnifica flowers, but am again in bad luck. I
searched the woods, wallowing through the
snow nearly to the upper limit of the fir belt,
but saw no flowers or buds that promised any¬
thing except on a few trees. I cut down six on
Shasta and two on Scott Mountains west of
Sissons. On one of the Shasta trees I found
the staminate flowers just emerging from the

307

JOHN MUIR

scales, but not a single pistillate flower. I send
the staminate, though hardly worth while.
Last yearns crop of cones was nearly all frost-
killed and most of the leaf buds also, so there is
little chance for flowers thereabouts this year.

Sonne writes that the Truckee Lumber Com¬
pany is to begin cutting Magnifica in the
Washoe Range ten miles east of Truckee on the
8th or 10th of this month, and he promises to
be promptly on hand among the fresh-felled
trees to get the flowers, while Miss Eastwood
starts this evening for the Sierra summit above
Truckee, and I have a friend in Yosemite
watching the trees around the rim of the Val¬
ley, so we can hardly fail to get good flowers
even in so bad a year as this is.

I have got through the first reading of your
Pine volume.^ It is bravely, sturdily, hand¬
somely done. Grand old Ponderosa you have
set forth in magnificent style, describing its
many forms and allowing species-makers to
name as many as they like, while showing their
inseparable characters. But you should have
mentioned the thick, scaly, uninflammable
bark with which, like a wandering warrior of

* Volume XI of Sargent’s devoted to the Coniferae.
The author’s dedication reads, “To John Muir, lover and
interpreter of nature, who best has told the story of the
Sierra forests, this eleventh volume of The Silva of North
America is gratefully dedicated.”

308

UNTO THE LAST

King Arthur^s time, it is clad, as accounting in
great part for its wide distribution and endur¬
ance of extremes of climate. You seem to rank
it above the sugar pine. But in youth and age,
clothed with beauty and majesty, Lambertiana
is easily King of all the world-wide realm of
pines, while Ponderosa is the noble, unconquer¬
able mailed knight without fear and without
reproach.

By brave and mighty Proteus-Muggins ^ you
have also done well, though you might have
praised him a little more loudly for hearty en¬
durance under manifold hardships, defying the
salt blasts of the sea from Alaska to the Cal¬
ifornia Golden Gate, and the frosts and fires
of the Rocky Mountains — growing patiently
in mossy bogs and on craggy mountain-tops —
crouching low on glacier granite pavements,
holding on by narrow cleavage joints, or wav¬
ing tall and slender and graceful in flowery
garden spots sheltered from every wind among
columbines and hlies, etc. A line or two of
sound sturdy Mother Earth poetry such as you
ventured to give Ponderosa in no wise weakens
or blurs the necessarily dry, stubbed, scientific
description, and I’m sure Muggins deserves it.
However, I’m not going fault-finding. It’s a

^ Probably Pinus contorta of the Silva, one of its variants
being the Murray or Tamarac Pine of the High Sierra.

309

JOHN MUIR

grand volume — a kingly Lambertiana job;
and on many a mountain trees now seedlings
will be giants and will wave their shining tassels
two hundred feet in the sky ere another pine
book will be made. So you may well sing your
nunc dimittis, and so, in sooth, may I, since
you have engraved my name on the head of it.

That Alleghany trip you so kindly offer is
mighty tempting. It has stirred up wild lover^s
longings to renew my acquaintance with old
forest friends and gain new ones under such
incomparable auspices. I^m just dying to see
basswood and shell-bark and liriodendron once
more. When could you start, and when would
you have me meet you? I think I might get
away from here about the middle of July and
go around by the Great Northern and lakes,
stopping a few days on old familiar ground
about the shores of Georgian Bay. I want to
avoid cities and dinners as much as possible
and travel light and free. If tree-lovers could
only grow bark and bread on their bodies, how
fine it would be, making even handbags useless !

Ever yours

John Muir

While trying to avoid people as much as pos¬
sible and seeing only you and trees, I should, if
I make this Eastern trip, want to call on Mrs.

310

UNTO THE LAST

Asa Gray, for I heartily love and admire Gray,
and in my mind his memory fades not at all.

The projected trip into the Alleghanies with
Sargent and Canby was imdertaken during
September and October when the Southern
forests were in their autumn glory. Muir had
entered into the plan with great eagerness. ^‘1
don’t want to die,” he wrote to Sargent in
Jime, '^without once more saluting the grand,
godly, round-headed trees of the east side of
America that I first learned to love and beneath
which I used to weep for joy when nobody
knew me.” The task of mapping a route was
assigned by Sargent to Mr. Canby on account
of his special acquaintance with the region.
‘^Dear old streak o’ lightning on ice,” the latter
wrote to Muir in July, was delighted to hear
from the glacial period once more and to know
that you were going to make your escape from
Purgatory and emerge into the heavenly for¬
ests of the Alleghanies. . . . Have you seen the
Luray Caverns or the Natural Bridge? If not,
do you care to? I should like to have you look
from the summit of Salt Pond Mountain in
Virginia and the Roan in North Carohna.”

For a month or more the three of them
roamed through the Southern forests, Muir
being especially charmed by the regions about

311

JOHN MUIR

Cranberry, Cloudland, and Grandfather Moun¬
tain, in North Carohna. From Roan Mountain
to Lenoir, about seventy-five miles, they drove
in a carriage — in Muir^s judgment “the finest
drive of its kind in America.’^ In Tennessee,
Georgia, and Alabama he crossed at various
times his old trail of 1867.

On his return to Boston, he “spent a night at
Page’s home and visited Mrs. Gray and talked
over old botanic times.” On the first of No¬
vember he is at “Four Brook Farm,” R. W.
Gilder’s country-place at Tyringham in the
Berkshire Hills, whence he writes to his daugh¬
ter Wanda: “Tell mamma that I have enjoyed
Mr. and Mrs. Gilder ever so much. On the way
here, on the car, I was introduced to Joseph
Choate, the great lawyer, and on Sunday Mr.
Gilder and I drove over to his fine residence at
Stockbridge to dinner, and I had a long talk
with him about forests as well as glaciers. To¬
day we all go back to New York. This evening
I dine with Johnson, and to-morrow I go up the
Hudson to the Osborns’.”

312

UNTO THE LAST

To Helen Muir

“ Wing-and-Wing”
Gaerisons-on-Hudson
November 4, 1898

My darling Helen:

This is a fine calm thoughtful morning, brac¬
ing and sparkling, just the least touch of hoar¬
frost, quickly melting where the sunbeams,
streaming through between the trees, fall in
yellow plashes and lances on the lawns. Every
now and then a red or yellow leaf comes swirl¬
ing down, though there is not the slightest
breeze. Most of the hickories are leafless now,
but the big buds on the ends of the twigs are
full of baby leaves and flowers that are already
planning and thinking about next summer.
Many of the maples, too, and the dogwoods are
showing leafless branches; but many along the
sheltered ravines are still rejoicing in all their
glory of color, and look like gigantic golden-
rods. God^s forests, my dear, are among the
grandest of terrestrial things that you may look
forward to. I have not heard from Professor
Sargent since he left New York a week ago, and
so I donT know whether he is ready to go to
Florida, but I’ll hear soon, and then I’ll know
nearly the time I’ll get home. Anyhow, it
won’t be long.

I am enjoying a fine rest. I have ^^the blue

313

JOHN MUIR

room^^ in this charming home, and it has the
daintiest hnen and embroidery I ever saw. The
bed is so soft and fine I hke to lie awake to
enjoy it, instead of sleeping. A servant brings
in a cup of coffee before I rise. This morning
when I was sipping coffee in bed, a red squirrel
looked in the window at me from a branch of a
big tulip-tree, and seemed to be saying as he
watched me. Oh, John Muir! camping, tramp¬
ing, tree-climbing scrambler! Churr, churr!
why have you left us? Chip churr, who would
have thought it?^'

Five days after the date of the above letter
he writes to his wife:

^^Dear Lassie, it is settled that I go on a
short visit to Florida with Sargent. ... I leave
here [Wing-and-Wing] to-morrow for New
York, dine with Tesla and others, and then
meet Sargent at Wilmington, Wednesday. IVe
had a fine rest in this charming home and feel
ready for Florida, which is now cool and
healthy. I^m glad to see the South again and
may write about it.’^

The trip to Florida, replete with color and
incident, is too full of particularity for recital
here. A halt in Savannah, Georgia, stirred up
old memories, for ^^here,^’ he writes in a letter
to his wife, “is where I spent a hungry, weary,

UNTO THE LAST

yet happy week camping in Bonaventure
graveyard thirty-one years ago. Many changes,
I^m told, have been made in its groves and
avenues of late, and how many in my life!^’

A dramatic occurrence was the finding at
Archer of Mrs. Hodgson, who had nursed him
back to health on his thousand-mile walk to the
Gulf. The incident is told in the following
excerpt from a letter to his wife under date of
November 21, 1898:

The day before yesterday we stopped at Palatka
on the famous St. Johns River, where I saw the
most magnificent magnolias, some four feet in diam¬
eter and one hundred feet high, also the largest and
most beautiful hickories and oaks. From there we
went to Cedar Keys. Of course I inquired for the
Hodgsons, at whose house I lay sick so long. Mr.
Hodgson died long ago, also the eldest son, with
whom I used to go boating, but Mrs. Hodgson and
the rest of the family, two boys and three girls, are
alive and well, and I saw them all to-day, except one
of the boys. I found them at Archer, where I
stopped four hours on my way from Cedar Keys.
Mrs. Hodgson and the two eldest girls remembered
me well. The house was pointed out to me, and I
found the good old lady who nursed me in the
garden. I asked her if she knew me. She answered
no, and asked my name. I said Muir. “John
Muir?” she almost screamed. “My California John
Muir? My California John?” I said, “Why, yes, I
promised to come back and visit you in about
twenty-five years, and though a little late IVe

315

JOHN MUIR

come/^ I stopped to dinner and we talked over old
times in grand style, you may be sure.

The following letter, full of good-natured
badinage and new plans for travel, was written
soon after his return home in December:

To Charles Sprague Sargent

Maetinez, December 28, 1898
My dear Professor Sargent:

I^m glad youTe miserable about not going to
Mexico, for it shows that your heart wood is
still honest and loving towards the grand trees
down there, though football games and Con¬
necticut turkey momentarily got the better of
you. The grand Taxodiums were object enough
for the trip, and I came pretty near making it
alone — would certainly have done it had I not
felt childishly lonesome and woe-begone after
you left me. No wonder I looked like an inland
coot to friend Mellichamp. But what would
that sharp observer have said to the Canby
huckleberry party gyrating lost in the Dela¬
ware woods, and splashing along the edge of the
marshy bay ^Troggin^ and crabbin^^^ with de¬
vout scientific solemnity! ! !

Mellichamp I liked ever so much, and blessed
old Mohr more than ever. For these good men
and many, many trees I have to thank you, and
I do over and over again as the main blessings

316

UNTO THE LAST

of the passing year. And I have to thank you
also for Gray’s writings — Essays, etc. —
which I have read with great interest. More
than ever I want to see Japan and eastern Asia.
I wonder if Canby could be converted to suffi¬
cient sanity to go with us on that glorious
dendrological trip. . . . Confound his Yankee
savings bank! He has done more than enough
in that line. It will soon be dark. Soon our
good botanical pegs will be straightened in a
box and planted, and it behooves us as reason¬
able naturalists to keep them tramping and
twinkling in the woods as long as possible. . . .

Wishing you and family and Silva” happy
New Year, I am.

Ever yours

John Mum

There were not a few among Muir’s literary
friends, men like Walter Hines Page and
Richard Watson Gilder, who as early as 1898
began to urge him to write his autobiography.

thank you for your kind suggestions about
^Recollections of a Naturalist,’” he replies to
Gilder in March, 1899. ‘^Possibly I may try
something of the sort some of these days,
though my life on the whole has been level and
uneventful, and therefore hard to make a book
of that many would read. I am not anxious to

317

JOHN MUIR

tell what I have done, but what Nature has
done — an infinitely more important story.’’

In April, 1899, he accepted an invitation to
join the Harriman Alaska Expedition. During
the cruise a warm friendship sprang up be¬
tween him and Mr. Harriman, who came to
value highly not only his personal qualities, but
also his sturdy independence. It was some
years afterward, while he was the guest of Mr.
Harriman at Pehcan Lodge on Klamath Lake,
that Muir was persuaded to dictate his mem¬
oirs to Mr. Harriman’s private secretary. We
owe it to the use of this expedient that Muir
was enabled to complete at least a part of his
autobiography before he passed on. The little
book ^ written by Muir in appreciation of Mr.
Harriman after his death sprang from mem¬
ories of many kindnesses, and unheralded oc¬
casions too, when Mr. Harriman’s influence
turned the scales in favor of some important
conservation measure dear to Muir’s heart.
Both held in warm regard Captain P. A. Doran,
of the Elder, which in 1899 carried the expedi¬
tionary party. am deeply touched at your
letter of the second just received,” wrote Mr.
Harriman to Muir on August 8, 1907, shortly
after a tragedy of the sea in which Captain
Doran perished. ^^We all grieved much over

^ Edward Henry Harriman, by John Muir. 1916.

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poor Doran. I had grown to look upon him as a
real friend and knew him to be a true man. I
am glad to have shared his friendship with you.
I am fortunate in having many friends and am
indeed proud to count you among the best. My
troubles are not to be considered with yours
and some others, for they are only passing and
will be eventually cleared up and understood
even by the 'some' to whom you refer. The
responsibilities weigh most when such mis-
fortimes occur as the loss of the poor passenger
who passed on with brave Doran."

To Charles Sprague Sargent

Martinez, A'pril 30, 1899
My dear Professor Sargent:

You are no doubt right about the little
Tahoe reservation — a scheme full of special
personalities, pushed through by a lot of law¬
yers, etc., but the more we get the better any¬
how. It is a natural park, and because of its
beauty and accessibility is visited more than
any other part of the Sierra except Yosemite.

All I know of the Rainier and Olympic re¬
servations has come through the newspapers.
The Olympic will surely be attacked again and
again for its timber, but the interests of Seattle
and Tacoma will probably save Rainier. I ex¬
pect to find out something about them soon, as

319

JOHN MUIR

I am going north from Seattle to Cook Inlet
and Kodiak for a couple of months with a
‘^scientific party.” ... This section of the
coast is the only one I have not seen, and I’m
glad of the chance.

Good luck to you. I wish I were going to
those leafy woods instead of icy Alaska. Be
good to the trees, you tough, sturdy pair.
Don’t frighten the much-enduring Crataeguses
and make them drop their spurs, and don’t tell
them quite eternally that you are from Boston
and the Delaware Huckleberry Peninsula.

My love to Canby — keep his frisks within
bounds. Remember me to the Biltmore friends
and blessed Mohr and Mellichamp. And re¬
member me also to the Messrs. Hickory and
Oak, and, oh, the magnolias in bloom! Hea¬
vens, how they glow and shine and invite a
fellow! Good-bye. I’ll hope to see you in
August.

Ever yours

John Muir

To Walter Hines Page

[Martinez, California, May^ 1899]
My dear Page :

I send the article on Yosemite Park to-day
by registered mail. It is short, but perhaps
long enough for this sort of stuff. I have three

320

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other articles on camping in the park, and on
the trees and shrubs, gardens, etc., and on
Sequoia Park, blocked out and more than half
written. I wanted to complete these and get
the book put together and off my hands this
summer, and, now that I have all the material
well in hand and on the move, I hate to leave it.

I start to-morrow on a two months^ trip with
Harriman^s Alaska Expedition. John Bur¬
roughs and Professor [W. H.] Brewer and a
whole lot of good naturahsts are going. But I
would not have gone, however tempting, were
it not to visit the only part of the coast I have
not seen and one of the scenes that I would
have to visit sometime anyhow. This has been
a barren year, and I am all the less willing to
go, though the auspices are so good. I lost half
the winter in a confounded fight with sheep and
cattlemen and politicians on behalf of the for¬
ests. During the other half I was benumbed
and interrupted by sickness in the family,
while in word works, even at the best, as you
know, I’m slow as a glacier. You’ll get these
papers, however, sometime, and they will be
hammered into a book — if I five long enough.

I was very glad to get your letter, as it
showed you were well enough to be at work
again. With best wishes, I am.

Faithfully yours J. M.

321

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs, Muir

Victoria, June 1, 1899

Dear Louie :

We sail from here in about two hours, and I
have just time to say another good-bye. The
ship is furnished in fine style, and I find we
are going just where I want to go — Yakutat,
Prince William Soimd, Cook Inlet, etc. I am
on the Executive Committee, and of course
have something to say as to routes, time to be
spent at each point, etc. The company is very
harmonious for scientists. Yesterday I tramped
over Seattle with John Burroughs. At Portland
the Mazamas were very demonstrative and
kind. I hope you are all busy with the hay.
Helen will keep it well tumbled and tramped
with Keenie’s help. I am making pleasant
acquaintances. Give my love to Maggie.
Good-bye. Ever your affectionate husband

John Muir

To Wanda and Helen Muir

Fort Wrangell, June 5, [1899,] 7 a.m.

How are you all? We arrived here last even¬
ing. This is a lovely morning — water hke
glass. Looks hke home. The fiowers are in
bloom, so are the forests. We leave in an hour
for Juneau. The mountains are pure white.
Went to church at Metlakatla, heard Duncan

322

UNTO THE LAST

preach, and the Indians sing. Had fine ramble
in the woods with Burroughs. He is ashore
looking and listening for birds. The song spar¬
row, a little dun, speckledy muggins, sings best.
Most of the passengers are looking at totem
poles.

Have letters for me at Seattle. No use trying
to forward them up here, as we don’t know
where we will touch on the way down home.

I hope you are all well and not too lonesome.
Take good care of Stickeen and Tom. We
landed at four places on the way up here. I
was glad to see the woods in those new places.

Love to all. Ever your loving papa

J. M.

To Louie, Wanda, and Helen

Juneau, June 6, [1899,] 9 a.m.

Cold rainy day. We stop here only a few
minutes, and I have only time to scribble love
to my darlings. The green mountains rise into
the gray cloudy sky four thousand feet, rich in
trees and grass and flowers and wild goats.

We are all well and happy. Yesterday was
bright and the mountains all the way up from
Wrangell were passed in review, opening their
snowy, icy recesses, and closing them, like turn¬
ing over the leaves of a grand picture book.
Everybody gazed at the grand glaciers and

323

JOHN MUIR

peaks, and we saw icebergs floating past for the
first time on the trip.

We landed on two points on the way up and
had rambles in the woods, and the naturalists
set traps and caught five white-footed mice.
We were in the woods I wandered in twenty
years ago, and I had many questions to answer.
Heaven bless you. We go next to Douglas
Mine, then to Skagway, then to Glacier Bay.

Good-bye John Muir

To Mrs. Muir and daughters

Sitka, Alaska, June 10, 1899
Dear Louie, Wanda, and Helen:

I wrote two days ago, and I suppose you will
get this at the same time as the other. We had
the Governor at dinner and a society affair
afterward that looked queer in the wilderness.
This eve we are to have a reception at the
Governor’s, and to-morrow we sail for Yakutat
Bay, thence to Prince William Sound, Cook
Inlet, etc. We were at the Hot Springs yes¬
terday, fifteen miles from here amid lovely
scenery.

The Topeka arrived last eve, and sails in an
hour or so. I met Professor Moses and his wife
on the wharf and then some Berkeley people
besides; then the Raymond agent, who intro¬
duced a lot of people, to whom I lectured in the

324

UNTO THE LAST

street. The thing was like a revival meeting.
The weather is wondrous fine, and all goes well.
I regret not having [had] a letter forwarded
here, as I long for a word of your welfare.
Heaven keep you, darlings. Ever yours

John Mum

To Mrs, Muir

Sitka., June 14, 1899

Deae Louie and baikns :

We are just entering Sitka Harbor after a
delightful sail down Peril Straits, and a per¬
fectly glorious time in Glacier Bay — five days
of the most splendid weather I ever saw in
Alaska. I was out three days with Gilbert and
Palache revisiting the glaciers of the upper end
of the Bay. Great changes have taken place.
The Pacific Glacier has melted back four miles
and changed into three separate glaciers, each
discharging bergs in grand style. One of them,
imnamed and unexplored, I named last even¬
ing, in a lecture they made me give in the
social hall, the Harriman Glacier, which was
received with hearty cheers. After the lecture
Mr. Harriman came to me and thanked me for
the great honor I had done him. It is a very
beautiful glacier, the front discharging bergs
like the Muir — about three quarters of a mile
wide on the sea wall.

325

JOHN MUm

Everybody was delighted with Glacier Bay
and the grand Muir Glacier, watching the beau¬
tiful bergs born in thunder, parties scattered
out in every direction in rowboats and steam
and naphtha launches on every sort of quest.
John Burroughs and Charlie Keeler climbed
the mountain on the east side of Muir Glacier,
three thousand feet, and obtained a grand view
far back over the mountain to the glorious
Fairweather Range. I tried hard to get out
of lecturing, but was compelled to do it. All
seemed pleased. Lectures every night. The
company all good-natured and harmonious.
Our next stop will be Yakutat.

I^m all sunburned by three bright days
among the bergs. I often wish you could have
been with us. You will see it all some day.
Heaven bless you. Remember me to Maggie.

Good-bye

[John Muir]

To Mrs, Muir

Off Prince William Sound
June 24, 1899

Dear Louie and darlings:

We are just approaching Prince William
Sound — the place above all others I have long
wished to see. The snow and ice-laden moun¬
tains loom grandly in crowded ranks above the

326

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dark, heaving sea, and I can already trace the
courses of some of the largest of the glaciers.
It is 2 P.M., and in three or four hours we shall
be at Orca, near the mouth of the bay, where I
will mail this note.

We had a glorious view of the mountains and
glaciers in sailing up the coast along the Fair-
weather Range from Sitka to Yakutat Bay. In
Yakutat and Disenchantment Bays we spent
four days, and I saw their three great glaciers
discharging bergs and hundreds of others to
best advantage. Also the loveliest flower gar¬
dens. Here are a few of the most beautiful of
the rubuses. This charming plant covers acres
like a carpet. One of the islands we landed
on, in front of the largest thundering glacier,
was so flower-covered that I could smell the
fragrance from the boat among the bergs half
a mile away.

I^m getting strong fast, and can walk and
climb about as well as ever, and eat everything
with prodigious appetite.

I hope to have a good view of the grand
glaciers here, though some of the party are
eager to push on to Cook Inlet. I think 1^11
have a chance to mail another letter ere we
leave the Sound.

Love to all

327

J. M.

JOHN MUIR

To Wanda Muir

Unalaska, July 8, 1899
My dear Wanda and Helen and Mamma:

We arrived here this cloudy, rainy, foggy
morning after a glorious sail from Sand Harbor
on Unga Island, one of the Shumagin group, all
the way along the volcano-dotted coast of the
Alaska Peninsula and Unimak Island. The
volcanoes are about as thick as haycocks on our
alfaKa field in a wet year, and the highest of
them are smoking and steaming in grand style.
Shishaldin is the handsomest volcanic cone I
ever saw and it looked like this last evening.
[Drawing.] I’ll show you a better sketch in my

notebook when I get home. About nine thou¬
sand feet high, snow and ice on its slopes, hot
and bare at the top. A few miles from Shis¬
haldin there is a wild rugged old giant of a vol¬
cano that blew or burst its own head off a few .
years ago, and covered the sea with ashes and
cinders and killed fish and raised a tidal wave

328

UNTO THE LAST

that lashed the shores of San Francisco and
even Martinez.

There is a ship, the Loredo, that is to sail in
an hour, so I’m in a hurry, as usual. We are
going to the Seal Islands and St. Lawrence
Island from here, and a point or two on the
Siberian coast — then home. We are taking on
coal, and will leave in three or four hours. I
hope fondly that you are all well. . . . I’ll soon
be back, my darlings. God bless you.

Good-bye

[John Mum]

‘‘To the ^Big Four’: the Misses Mary and
Cornelia Harriman, and the Misses Eliz¬
abeth Averell and Dorothea Draper, who
with Carol and Boland [Harriman], the
^Little Two,’ kept us all young on the
never-to-be-forgotten H.A.E.” ^

[Martinez,] August 30, 1899

Dear Girls:

I received your kind compound letter from
the railroad washout with great pleasure, for it
showed, as I fondly thought, that no wreck,
washout, or crevasse of any sort will be likely
to break or wash out the memories of our grand
trip, or abate the friendliness that sprung up on

' Harriman Alaska Expedition.

329

JOHN MUIR

the Elder among the wild scenery of Alaska
during these last two memorable months. No
doubt every one of the favored happy band
feels, as I do, that this was the grandest trip of
his life. To me it was peculiarly grateful and
interesting because nearly all my hfe I have
wandered and studied alone. On the Elder, I
found not only the fields I liked best to study,
but a hotel, a club, and a home, together with a
floating University in which I enjoyed the in¬
struction and companionship of a lot of the
best fellows imaginable, culled and arranged
like a well-balanced bouquet, or like a band of
glaciers flowing smoothly together, each in its
own channel, or perhaps at times like a lot of
round boulders merrily swirling and chafing
against each other in a glacier pothole.

And what a glorious trip it was for you girls,
flying like birds from wilderness to wilderness,
the wildest and brightest of America, tasting
almost every science under the sun, with fine
breezy exercise, scrambles over mossy logs and
rocks in the spruce forests, walks on the crystal
prairies of the glaciers, on the flowery boggy
tundras, in the luxuriant wild gardens of
Kodiak and the islands of Bering Sea, and
plashing boat rides in the piping bracing winds,
all the while your eyes filled with magnificent
scenery — the Alexander Archipelago with its

330

UNTO THE LAST

thousand forested islands and calm mirror
waters, Glacier Bay, Fairweather Mountains,
Yakutat and Enchantment Bays, the St. Elias
Alps and glaciers and the glorious Prince Wil¬
liam Sound, Cook Inlet, and the Aleutian Pen¬
insula with its flowery, icy, smoky volcanoes,
the blooming banks and braes and mountains
of Unalaska, and Bering Sea with its seals and
Innuits, whales and whalers, etc., etc., etc.

It is not easy to stop writing imder the ex¬
hilaration of such an excursion, so much pure
wildness with so much fine company. It is a
pity so rare a company should have to be
broken, never to be assembled again. But
many, no doubt, will meet again. On your side
of the continent perhaps half the number may
be got together. Already I have had two trips
with Merriam to the Sierra Sequoias and Coast
Redwoods, during which you may be sure the
H.A.E. was enjoyed over again. A few days
after I got home. Captain Doran paid me a
visit, most of which was spent in a hearty re¬
view of the trip. And last week Gannett came
up and spent a couple of days, during which we
went over all our enjoyments, science and fun,
mountain ranges, glaciers, etc., discussing
everything from earth sculpture to Cassiope
and rhododendron gardens — from Welsh rare¬
bit and jam and cracker feasts to Nunatak. I

331

JOHN MUIR

hope to have visits from Professor Gilbert and
poet Charlie ere long, and Earlybird Ritter,
and possibly I may see a whole lot more in the
East this coming winter or next. Anyhow, re¬
member me to all the Harrimans and Averells
and every one of the party you chance to meet.
Just to think of them! ! Ridgway with wonder¬
ful bird eyes, all the birds of America in them;
Funny Fisher ever flashing out wit ; Perpendic¬
ular E., erect and majestic as a Thlinket totem
pole; Old-sea-beach G., hunting upheavals,
downheavals, sideheavals, and hanging valleys;
the Artists reveling in color beauty like bees in
flower-beds; Ama-a-merst tripping along shore
like a sprightly sandpiper, pecking kelp-
bearded boiflders for a meal of fossil molluscs;
Genius Kincaid among his beetles and butter¬
flies and red-tailed bumble-bees that sting aw¬
ful hard’^; Innuit Dali smoking and musing;
flowery Trelease and Coville; and Seaweed
Saunders; our grand big-game Doctor, and how
many more! Blessed Brewer of a thousand
speeches and stories and merry ha-has, and
Genial John Burroughs, who growled at and
scowled at good Bering Sea and me, but never
at thee. I feel pretty sure that he is now all
right at his beloved Slabsides and I have a good
mind to tell his whole Bering story in his own
sort of good-natured, gnarly, snarly, jimgle,
jangle rhyme.

332

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There! But how unconscionably long the
thing is! I must stop short. Remember your
penitential promises. Kill as few of your fellow
beings as possible and pursue some branch of
natural history at least far enough to see
Nature^s harmony. Don’t forget me. God
bless you. Good-bye.

Ever your friend

John Muir

To Julia Merrill Moores

July 25, 1900

My dear friends :

I scarce need say that I have been with you
and mourned with you every day since your
blessed sister was called away, and wished I
could do something to help and comfort you.
Before your letter came, I had already com¬
menced to write the memorial words you ask
for, and I’ll send them soon.

Her beautiful, noble, helpful life on earth
was complete, and had she lived a thousand
years she would still have been mourned, the
more the longer she stayed. Death is as natural
as hfe, sorrow as joy. Through pain and death
come all our blessings, life and immortality.

However clear our faith and hope and love,
we must suffer — but with glorious compensa¬
tion. While death separates, it unites, and the
sense of loneliness grows less and less as we

333

JOHN MUIR

become accustomed to the new light, commun¬
ing with those who have gone on ahead in
spirit, and feeling their influence as if again
present in the flesh. Your own experience tells
you this, however. The Source of all Good
turns even sorrow and seeming separation to
our advantage, makes us better, drawing us
closer together in love, enlarging, strengthen¬
ing, brightening our views of the spirit world
and our hopes of immortal union. Blessed it is
to know and feel, even at this cost, that neither
distance nor death can truly separate those
who love.

My friends, whether living or dead, have
always been with me in my so-called lonely
wanderings, so kind and wonderful are God’s
compensations. Few, dear friends, have greater
cause for sorrow, or greater cause for joy, than
you have. Your sister hves in a thousand
hearts, and her influence, pure as sunshine and
dew, can never be lost. . . .

Read again and again those blessed words,
ever old, ever new: “Who redeemeth thy hfe
from destruction; who crowneth thee with lov¬
ing kindness and tender mercy,” who pities you
“hke as a father pitieth his children, for He
knoweth our frame. He knoweth that we are
dust. Man’s days are as grass, as a flower of the
field the wind passeth over it and it is gone, but

334

UNTO THE LAST

the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to
everlasting.’^

In His strength we must live on, work on,
doing the good that comes to heart and hand,
looking forward to meeting in that City which
the streams of the River of Life make glad.

Ever your loving friend J. M.

To Walter Hines Page

Martinez, June 12, 1900

My deak Mr. Page :

I sent by mail to-day manuscript of ice
article for the Harriman book, the receipt of
which please acknowledge, and as it is short I
hope you will read it, not for wandering words
and sentences out of plumb, but for the ice of
it. Coming as you do from the imglacial South,
it may ^^fill a long-felt want.” And before you
settle down too hopelessly far in book business
take a trip to our western Iceland. Go to
Glacier Bay and Yakutat and Prince William
Sound and get some pure wildness into your
inky life. Neglect not this glacial advice and
glacial salvation this hot weather, and believe me
Faithfully yours John Muir

Very many letters of appreciation were writ¬
ten to Muir by persons who were strangers to
him, except in spirit. One such came during the

JOHN MUIR

autumn of 1900 from an American woman resi¬
dent in Yokohama. ^^More than twenty years
ago/’ said the writer, when I was at my moun¬
tain home in Siskiyou County, California, I
read a short sketch of your own, in which you
pictured your sense of delight in listening to the
wind, with its many voices, sweeping through
the pines. That article made a lifelong impres¬
sion on me, and shaped an inner perception for
the wonders of Nature which has gladdened my
entire life since. ... It has always seemed that
I must some time thank you.”

To Mrs. Richard Swain

Martinez, California
October 21, 1900

Mrs. Richard Swain:

That you have so long remembered that
sketch of the wind-storm in the forest of the
Yuba gives me pleasure and encouragement in
the midst of this hard life work, for to me it is
hard, far harder than tree or mountain climb¬
ing. When I began my wanderings in God’s
wilds, I never dreamed of writing a word for
publication, and since beginning literary work
it has never seemed possible that much good to
others could come of it. Written descriptions of
fire or bread are of but little use to the cold or
starving. Descriptive writing amounts to little

336

/

UNTO THE LAST

more than ' ^ Hurrah, here’s something ! Come ! ’ ’
When my friends urged me to begin, saying,
'‘We cannot all go to the woods and moun¬
tains; you are free and love wildness; go and
bring it to us,” I used to reply that it was not
possible to see and enjoy for others any more
than to eat for them or warm for them. Na¬
ture’s tables are spread and fires burning. You
must go warm yourselves and eat. But letters
like yours which occasionally come to me show
that even nature writing is not altogether use¬
less.

Some time I hope to see Japan’s mountains
and forests. The flora of Japan and Manchuria
is among the richest and most interesting on
the globe. With best wishes, I am

Very truly yours

J. M.

To Katherine Merrill Gray don

Martinez, October 22, 1900
My deak Miss Graydon:

... Of course you know you have my sym¬
pathy in your loneliness — loneliness not of
miles, but of loss — the departure from earth of
your great-aunt Kate, the pole-star and lode-
stone of your life and of how many other lives.
Wliat she was to me and what I thought of her
I have written and sent to your Aunt Julia for a

337

JOHN MUIR

memorial book^ her many friends are prepar¬
ing. A rare beloved soul sent of God, all her
long life a pure blessing. Her work is done; and
she has gone to the Better Land, and now you
must get used to seeing her there and hold on
to her as your guide as before. . . .

Wanda, as you know, is going to school, and
expects soon to enter the University. She is a
faithful, steady scholar, not in the least odd or
brilliant, but earnest and unstoppable as an
avalanche. She comes home every Friday or
Saturday by the new railway that crosses the
vineyards near the house. Muir Station is just
above the Reid house. What sort of a scholar
Helen will be I don’t know. She is very happy
and strong. My sister Sarah is now with us,
making four Muirs here, just half the fam¬
ily. . . .

Ever your friend

John Muir

To Dr, C, Hart Merriam

Martinez, Cal.

October 23, 1900

My dear Dr. Merriam :

I am very glad to get your kind letter bring¬
ing back our big little Sierra trip through the

^ The Man Shakespeare, and Other Essays. By Catharine
Merrill. The Bowen-Merrill Company, 1902.

338

UNTO THE LAST

midst of so many blessed chipmunks and trees.
Many thanks for your care and kindness about
the photographs and for the pile of interesting
bird and beast Bulletins. No. 3^ contains lots
of masterly work and might be expanded into a
grand book. This you should do, adding and
modifying in accordance with the knowledge
you have gathered during the last ten years.
But alas! Here you are pegging and puttering
with the concerns of others as if in length of hfe
you expect to rival Sequoia. That stream and
fountain ^ article, which like Tennyson^s brook
threatened to ^^go on forever,” is at last done,
and I am now among the Big Tree parks. Not
the man with the hoe, but the poor toiler with
the pen, deserves mile-long commiseration in
prose and rhyme.

Give my kindest regards to Mrs. and Mr.
Bailey, and tell them I’ll go guide with them to
Yosemite whenever they like unless I should
happen to be hopelessly tied up in some way.

With pleasant recollections from Mrs. Muir
and the girls, I am

Very truly yours John Muir

' North American Fauna, No. 3 — Results of a Biological
Survey of San Francisco Mountains and the Desert of the
Little Colorado, Arizona, by C. Hart Merriam, September,
1900.

2 “Fountains and Streams of the Yosemite National
Park,” Atlantic, April, 1901.

339

JOHN MUIR

To Mrs, Henry Fairfield Osborn

Martinez, California
November 18, 1900

My dear Mrs. Osborn:

Nothing could be kinder than your invita¬
tion to Wing-and-Wing, and how gladly we
would accept, you know. But grim Duty,
like Bunyan^s Apollyon, is now straddling
across the whole breadth of the way,’’ crying
‘‘No.” . . .

I am at work on the last of a series of park
and forest articles to be collected and published
in book form by Houghton, Mifflin & Com¬
pany and which I hope to get off my hands
soon. But there is endless work in sight ahead
— Sierra and Alaska things to follow as fast as
my slow, sadly interrupted pen can be spurred
to go.

Yes, I know it is two years since I enjoyed
the dainty chickaree room you so kindly call
mine. Last summer as you know I was in
Alaska. This year I was in the Sierra, going up
by way of Lake Tahoe and down by Yosemite
Valley, crossing the range four times along the
headwaters of the Truckee, Carson, Mokel-
umne, Stanislaus, Calaveras, Walker, Tuolumne
and Merced Rivers, revisiting old haunts, ex¬
amining forests, and learning what I could
about birds and mammals with Dr. Merriam

340

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and his sister and Mr. Bailey — keen natural¬
ists with infinite appetite for voles, marmots,
squirrels, chipmunks, etc. We had a delightful
time, of course, and in Yosemite I remembered
your hoped-for visit to the grand Valley and
wished you were with us. I’m sorry I missed
Sir Michael Foster. Though prevented now, I
hope ere long to see Wing-and-Wing in autumn
glory. In the mean time and* always
I am ever your friend

John Muir

To Walter Hines Page

Martinez, Cal.

January 10, 1902

Big thanks, my dear Page, for your great
letter. The strength and shove and hearty
ringing inspiration of it is enough to make the
very trees and rocks write. The Park book, the
publishers tell me, is successful. To you and
Sargent it owes its existence; for before I got
your urgent and encouraging letters I never
dreamed of writing such a book. As to plans
for others, I am now at work on —

1. A small one, Yosemite and Other Yo-
semites,” which Johnson has been trying to get
me to write a long time and which I hope to get
off my hands this year. I’ll first offer it to the
Century Company, hoping they will bring it

341

JOHN MUIR

out in good shape, give it a good push toward
readers and offer fair compensation. . . .

2. The Cahfornia tree and shrub book was
suggested by Merriam last summer, but I have
already written so fully on forest trees and
their underbrush I^m not sure that I can make
another useful book about them. Possibly a
handy volume, with short telhng descriptions
and illustrations of each species, enabling the
ordinary observer to know them at sight, might
be welcomed. This if undertaken will probably
be done season after next, and you shall have
the first sight of it.

3. Next should come a mountaineering book
— all about walking, climbing, and camping,
with a lot of illustrative excursions.

4. Alaska — glaciers, forests, mountains,
travels, etc.

5. A book of studies — the action of land¬
scape-making forces, earth sculpture, distribu¬
tion of plants and animals, etc. My main real
book in which I’ll have to ask my readers to
cerebrate. Still I hope it may be made read¬
able to a good many.

6. Possibly my autobiography which for ten
years or more all sorts of people have been
begging me to write. My life, however, has
been so smooth and regular and reasonable, so
free from blundering exciting adventures, the

342

UNTO THE LAST

story seems hardly worth while in the midst of
so much that is infinitely more important.
Still, if I should five long enough I may be
tempted to try it. For I begin to see that such
a book would offer fair opportunities here and
there to say a good word for God.

The Harriman Alaska book is superb and I
gladly congratulate you on the job. In none of
the reviews I have seen does Dr. Merriam get
half the credit due him as editor.

Hearty thanks for the two Mowbray vol¬
umes. IVe read them every word. The more
of such nature books the better. Good luck to
you. May your shop grow like a sequoia and
may I meet you with all your family on this
side the continent amid its best beauty.

Ever faithfully yours

John Mum

To Dr, C. Hart Merriam

[January j 1902]

My dear Dr. Merriam:

I send these clippings to give a few hints as
to the sheep and forests. Please return them.
If you have a file of ^^The Forester’^ handy,
you might turn to the February and July
numbers of 1898, and the one of June, 1900, for
solemn discussions of the proper regulation^'
of sheep grazing.

343

JOHN MUIR

With the patronage of the business in the
hands of the Western politician, the so-called
proper regulation of sheep grazing by the For¬
estry Department is as hopelessly vain as
would be laws and regulations for the proper
management of ocean cmrents and earth¬
quakes.

The pohticians, in the interest of wealthy
mine, mill, sheep, and cattle owners, of course
nominate superintendents and supervisors of
reservations supposed to be harmlessly bhnd to
their stealings. Only from the MiUtary Depart¬
ment, free from political spoils poison, has any
real good worth mention been gained for for¬
ests, and so, as far as I can see, it will be, no
matter how well the Forestry Department may
be organized, until the supervisors, superin¬
tendents, and rangers are brought under
Civil Service Reform. Ever yours

John Muir

To Charles Sprague Sargent

Martinez, September 10, 1902
My dear Sargent:

What are you so wildly quitting about?
IVe faithfully answered all your letters, and as
far as I know you are yourself the supreme
quitter — Quitter gigantea — quitting Mexico,
quitting a too trusting companion in swamps

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and sand dunes of Florida, etc., etc. Better
quit quitting, though since giving the world so
noble a book you must, I suppose, be allowed
to do as you like until time and Siberia effect a
cure.

I am and have been up to the eyes in work,
insignificant though it be. Last spring had to
describe the Colorado Grand Canon — the
toughest job I ever tackled, strenuous enough
to disturb the equanimity of even a Boston
man. Then I had to rush off to the Sierra with
[the Sierra] Club outing. Then had to explore
Kern River Canon, etc. Now I^m at work on a
little Yosemite book. Most of the material for
it has been pubhshed already, but a new chap¬
ter or two will have to be written. Then there
is the “ Silva review, the most formidable job
of all, which all along IVe been hoping some
abler, better equipped fellow would take off my
hands. CanT you at least give me some helpful
suggestions as to the right size, shape, and com¬
position of this review?

Of course I want to take that big tree trip
with you next season, and yet I should hate
mortally to leave either of these tasks unfin¬
ished. Glorious congratulations on the ending
of your noble book!

Ever faithfully yours

John Mum

345

JOHN IVIUIR

To Mrs, Anna R, Dickey

Mabtinez, October 12, 1902

Dear Mrs. Dickey:

I was glad to get your letter. It so vividly
recalled our memorable ramble, merry and
nobly elevating, and solemn in the solemn ab¬
original woods and gardens of the great moun¬
tains — commonplace, sublime, and divine. I
seemed to hear your voice in your letter, and
see you ghding, drifting, scrambhng along the
trails with all the gay good company, or seated
around our many camp-fires in the great il¬
luminated groves, etc., etc. — altogether a
good trip in which everybody was a happy
scholar at the feet of Nature, and all learned
something direct from earth and sky, bird and
beast, trees, flowers, and chanting winds and
waters; hints, suggestions, fittle-great lessons of
God’s infinite power and glory and goodness.
No wonder your youth is renewed and Donald
goes to his studies right heartily.

To talk plants to those who love them must
ever be easy and delightful. By the way, that
little fairy, airy, white-flowered plant which
covers sandy dry ground on the mountains like
a mist, which I told you was a near relative to
Eriogonum, but whose name I could never re¬
call, is Oxytheca spergulina. There is another
rather common species in the region we trav-

346

UNTO THE LAST

eled, but this is the finest and most abun¬
dant.

I^m glad you found the mountain hemlock,
the loveliest of conifers. You will find it de¬
scribed in both my books. It is abimdant in
Kings River Canon, but not beside the trails.
The heather you mention is no doubt Bryan-
thus or Cassiope. Next year you and Donald
should make collections of at least the most
interesting plants. A plant press, tell Donald,
is lighter and better than a gun. So is a camera,
and good photographs of trees and shrubs are
much to be desired.

I have heard from all the girls. Their en¬
thusiasm is still fresh, and they are already plan¬
ning and plotting for next yearns outing in the
Yosemite, Tuolumne, and Mono regions. . . .
Gannett stayed two days with us, and is now, I
suppose at home. I was hoping you might have
a day or two for a visit to our little valley.
Next time you come to the city try to stop off
at ‘^Muir Station on the Santa F4. We are
only an hour and a half from the city. I should
greatly enjoy a visit at your Ojai home, as you
well know, but when fate and work will let me
I dinna ken. . . . Give my sincere regard to
Donald.

Ever faithfully yours

John Muir

347

JOHN MUm

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, September 15, 1902
Dear Mr. Johnson:

On my return from the Kern region I heard
loud but vague rumors of the discovery of a
giant sequoia in Converse Basin on Kings
River, one hundred and fifty-three feet in cir¬
cumference and fifty feet in diameter, to which
I paid no attention, having heard hundreds of
such ^^biggest-tree-in-the-world^’ rumors be¬
fore. But at Fresno I met a surveyor who as¬
sured me that he had himself measured the tree
and found it to be one hundred and fifty-three
feet in circumference six feet above ground. So
of course I went back up the mountains to see
and measure for myself, carrying a steel tape-
line.

At one foot above ground it is 108 feet in circumference
“ four feet “ “ “ “ 97 “ 6 inches in “

ft (( H cc (I {( (( (( ((

One of the largest and finest every way of living
sequoias that have been measured. But none
can say it is certainly the largest The im¬
mensely larger dead one that I discovered
twenty-seven years ago stands within a few
miles of this new wonder, and I think I have in
my notebooks measurements of living speci¬
mens as large as the new tree, or larger. I have

348

UNTO THE LAST

a photo of the tree and can get others, I think,
from a photographer who has a studio in Con¬
verse Basin. I’ll write a few pages on Big Trees
in general if you like; also touching on the hor¬
rible destruction of the Kings River groves now
going on fiercely about the mills.

As to the discovery of a region grander than
Yosemite by the Kelly brothers in the Kings
Canon, it is nearly all pure bosh. I explored the
Canon long ago. It is very deep, but has no El
Capitan or anything like it.

Ever yours faithfully

John Muir

To Henry Fairfield 0 shorn

Martinez, California
July 16, 1904

Dear Mr. Osborn:

In the big talus of letters, books, pamphlets,
etc., accumulated on my desk during more than
a year’s absence, I found your Boone and
Crockett address ^ and have heartily enjoyed
it. It is an admirable plea for our poor hori¬
zontal fellow-mortals, so fast passing away in
ruthless starvation and slaughter. Never be¬
fore has the need for places of refuge and pro¬
tection been greater. Fortunately, at the last

1 “Preservation of the Wild Animals of North America,”
Forest and Stream, April 16, 1904, pp. 312-13.

349

JOHN MUIR

hour, with utter extinction in sight, the Gov¬
ernment has begun to act under pressure of
pubhc opinion, however shght. Therefore your
address is timely and should be widely pub¬
lished. I have often written on the subject, but
mostly with non-effect. The murder business
and sport by saint and sinner alike has been
pushed ruthlessly, merrily on, until at last pro¬
tective measmes are being called for, partly, I
suppose, because the pleasure of killing is in
danger of being lost from there being Uttle or
nothing left to kill, and partly, let us hope, from
a dim glimmering recognition of the rights of
animals and their kinship to ourselves.

How long it seems since my last visit to
Wing-and-Wing! and how far we have been! I
got home a few weeks ago from a trip more
than a year long. I went with Professor Sargent
and his son Robeson through Europe visiting
the principal parks, gardens, art galleries, etc.
From Berlin we went to St. Petersburg, thence
to the Crimea, by Moscow, the Caucasus,
across by Dariel Pass from Tiflis, and back to
Moscow. Thence across Siberia, Manchuria,
etc., to Japan and Shanghai.

At Shanghai left the Sargents and set out on
a grand trip alone and free to India, Egypt,
Ceylon, Austraha, New Zealand. Thence by
way of Port Darwin, Timor, through the Malay

350

UNTO THE LAST

Archipelago to Manila. Thence to Hong Kong
again and Japan and home by Honolulu. Had
perfectly glorious times in India, Austraha, and
New Zealand. The flora of Australia and New
Zealand is so novel and exciting I had to begin
botanical studies over again, working night and
day with endless enthusiasm. And what won¬
drous beasts and birds, too, are there!

Do write and let me know how you all are.
Remember me with kindest regards to Mrs.
Osborn and the children and beheve me ever

Faithfully yours

John Muir

II

1905-1914

The closing period of Muir^s life began with a
great triumph and a bitter sorrow — both in
the same year. His hour of triumph came with
the successful issue of a seventeen-year cam¬
paign to rescue his beloved Yosemite Valley
from the hands of spoilers. His chief helpers
were Mr. Johnson in the East and Mr. William
E. Colby in the West. The latter had, under
the auspices of the Sierra Club, organized and
conducted for many years summer outings of
large parties of Club members into the High
Sierra. These outings, by their simple and

351

JOHN MUIR

healthful camping methods, by their easy mo¬
bility amid hundreds of miles of superb moun¬
tain scenery, and by the deep love of unspoiled
nature which they awakened in thousands of
hearts, not only achieved a national reputation,
but trained battalions of eager defenders of our
national playgrounds. No one was more re¬
joiced by the growing success of the outings
than John Muir, and the evenings when he
spoke at the High Sierra camp-fires are treas¬
ured memories in many hearts.

When the battle for the recession of the
Yosemite Valley grew keen during January and
February, 1905, Mr. Muir and Mr. Colby went
to Sacramento in order to counteract by their
personal presence the propaganda of falsehoods
which an interested opposition was industri¬
ously spreading. The bill passed by a safe
majority and the first of the two following let¬
ters celebrates the event; the second relates to
the later acceptance of the Valley by Congress,
to be administered thereafter as an integral
part of the Yosemite National Park.

On the heels of this achievement came a
devastating bereavement — the death of his
wife. Earlier in the year his daughter Helen
had been taken seriously ill, and when she be¬
came convalescent she had to be removed to
the dry air of Arizona. WHiile there with her, a

352

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telegram called him back to the bedside of his
wife, in whose case a long-standing illness had
suddenly become serious. She died on the
sixth of August, 1905, and thereafter the old
house on the hill was a shelter and a place of
work from time to time, but never a home
again. “Get out among the mountains and the
trees, friend, as soon as you can,’^ wrote Theo¬
dore Roosevelt. “They will do more for you
than either man or woman could.’’ But anxiety
over the health of his daughter Helen bound
him to the Arizona desert for varying periods of
time. There he discovered remnants of a won¬
derful petrified forest, which he studied with
great eagerness. He urged that it be preserved
as a national monument, and it was set aside
by Theodore Roosevelt in 1906 under the name
of the Petrified Forest National Monument.

These years of grief and anxiety proved com¬
paratively barren in hterary work. But part of
the time he probably was engaged upon a re¬
vised and enlarged edition of his “Mountains
of California,” which appeared in 1911 with an
affectionate dedication to the memory of his
wife. In some notes, written during 1908, for
his autobiography, Muir alludes to this period
of stress with a pathetic foreboding that he
might not live long enough to gather a matured
literary harvest from his numerous notebooks.

353

JOHN MUIR

The letters of the closing years of his hfe
show an increasing sense of urgency regarding
the unwritten books mentioned in his letter to
Walter Hines Page, and he appUed himself to
literary work too imremittingly for the require¬
ments of his health. Much of his writing during
this period was done at the home of Mr. and
Mrs. J. D. Hooker in Los Angeles and at the
summer home of Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fairfield
Osborn at Garrison^s-on-the-Hudson. The last
long journey, in which he realized the dreams of
a lifetime, was undertaken during the summer
of 1911. It was the trip to South America, to
the Amazon — the goal which he had in view
when he set out on his thousand-mile walk to
the Gulf in 1867. His chief object was to see
the araucaria forests of Brazil. This accom¬
plished, he went from South America to South
Africa in order to see the Baobab tree in its
native habitat.

During these few later years of domestic troubles
and anxieties [he wrote in 1911] but little writing or
studying of any sort has been possible. But these,
fortunately, are now beginning to abate, and I hope
that something worth while may still be accom¬
plished before the coming of life’s night. I have
written but three ^ books as yet, and a number of
scientific and popular articles in magazines, news-

^ Mountains of Califomiay Our National Parks, and My
First Summer in the Sierra.

354

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papers, etc. In the beginning of my studies I never
intended to write a word for the press. In my life of
lonely wanderings I was pushed and pulled on and
on through everything by unwavering never-ending
love of God’s earth plans and works, and eternal,
immortal, all-embracing Beauty; and when im¬
portuned to write, write, write, and give your
treasures to the world,” I have always said that I
could not stop field work until too old to climb
mountains; but now, at the age of seventy, I begin
to see that if any of the material collected in note¬
books, already sufficient for a dozen volumes, is to
be arranged and pubhshed by me, I must make
haste.

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Martinez, February 24, [1905]
Dear Mr. Johnson:

I wish I could have seen you last night when
you received my news of the Yosemite victory,
which for so many years, as commanding gen¬
eral, you have bravely and incessantly fought
for. .

About two years ago public opinion, which
had long been on our side, began to rise into
effective action. On the way to Yosemite [in
1903] both the President ^ and our Governor ^
were won to our side, and since then the move¬
ment was like Yosemite avalanches. But
though almost everybody was with us, so ac-

^ President Theodore Roosevelt and Governor George C.
Pardee.

355

JOHN MUm

tive was the opposition of those pecuniarily and
pohtically interested, we might have failed to
get the bill through the Senate but for the help

of Mr. H - , though, of course, his name or

his company were never in sight through all the
fight. About the beginning of January I wrote

to Mr. H - . He promptly telegraphed a

favorable reply.

Wish you could have heard the oratory of the
opposition — fluffy, nebulous, shrieking, howl¬
ing, threatening like sand-storms and dust
whirlwinds in the desert. Sometime I hope to
tell you all about it.

I am now an experienced lobbyist; my politi¬
cal education is complete. Have attended Leg¬
islature, made speeches, explained, exhorted,
persuaded every mother^s son of the legislators,
newspaper reporters, and everybody else who
would hsten to me. And now that the fight is
finished and my education as a politician and
lobb3dst is finished, I am almost finished my¬
self.

Now, ho! for righteous management. ... Of
course you’ll have a long editorial in the
‘^Century.”

Faithfully yours

[John Muir]

356

UNTO THE LAST

To Robert Underwood Johnson

Adamana, Arizona
July 16, 1906

Yes, my dear Johnson, sound the loud tim¬
brel and let every Yosemite tree and stream
rejoice!

You may be sure I knew when the big bill
passed. Getting Congress to accept the Valley
brought on, strange to say, a desperate fight
both in the House and Senate. Sometime I’ll
teU you all the story. You don’t know how
accomphshed a lobbyist I’ve become under
your guidance. The fight you planned by that
famous Tuolumne camp-fire seventeen years
ago is at last fairly, gloriously won, every
enemy down derry down.

Write a good, long, strong, heart-warming
letter to Colby. He is the only one of all the
Club who stood by me in downright effective
fighting.

I congratulate you on your successful man¬
agement of Vesuvius, as Gilder says, and safe
return with yourself and family in all its far-
spreading branches in good health. Helen is
now much better. Wanda was married last
month, and I am absorbed in these enchanted
carboniferous forests. Come and let me guide
you through them and the great Canon.

Ever yours John Mum
357

JOHN MUIR

To Francis Fisher Browne ^

325 West Adams Street
Los Angeles, California
June 1, 1910

My dear Mr. Browne:

Good luck and congratulations on the
^^DiaFs’^ thirtieth anniversary, and so Scot-
tishly and well I learned to know you two
summers ago, with blessed John Burroughs &
Co., that I seem to have known you always.

I was surprised to get a long letter from Miss
Barrus written at Seattle, and in writing to Mr.
Burroughs later I proposed to him that he fol¬
low to this side of the continent and build a
new Slabsides where rolls the Oregon, and
write more bird and bee books instead of his
new-fangled Catskill Silurian and Devonian
geology on which he at present seems to have
gane gite, clean gite, having apparently for¬
gotten that there is a single bird or bee in the
sky. I also proposed that in his ripe, mellow,
autumnal age he go with me to the basin of the
Amazon for new ideas, and also to South Africa
and Madagascar, where he might see something
that would bring his early bird and bee days to
mind.

^ Editor of The Dial from 1880 to his death in 1913. A
tribute by Muir under the title “Browne the Beloved” ap¬
peared in The Dial during June, 1913.

358

UNTO THE LAST

I have been hidden down here in Los Angeles
for a month or two and have managed to get off
a httle book to Houghton Mifflin, which they
propose to bring out as soon as possible. It is
entitled ^^My First Summer in the Sierra.’’ I
also have another book nearly ready, made up
of a lot of animal stories for boys, drawn from
my experiences as a boy in Scotland and in the
wild oak openings of Wisconsin. I have also
rewritten the autobiographical notes dictated
at Harriman’s Pelican Lodge on Klamath Lake
two years ago, but that seems to be an endless
job, and, if completed at all, will require many
a year. Next month I mean to try to bring
together a lot of Yosemite material into a hand¬
book for travelers, which ought to have been
written long ago.

So you see I am fairly busy, and precious
few trips will I be able to make this summer,
although I took Professor Osborn and family
into the Yosemite for a few days, and Mr.
Hooker and his party on a short trip to the
Grand Canon.

Are you coming West this year? It would be
delightful to see you once more.

I often think of the misery of Mr. Bmrroughs
and his physician, caused by our revels in
Burns’ poems, reciting verse about in the
resonant board chamber whose walls trans-

359

JOHN MUIR

mitted every one of the blessed words to the
sleepy and unwilhng ears of John. . . . Fim to
us, but death and broken slumbers to Oom
John!

With all best wishes, my dear Browne, and
many warmly cherished memories, I am
Ever faithfully your friend

John Muir

To Henry Fairfield Osborn

325 West Adams Street
Los Angeles, California
June 1, 1910

My dear Mr. Osborn:

Many thanks for the copy you sent me of
your long good manly letter to Mr. Robert J.
Colher on the Hetch-Hetchy Yosemite Park.
As I suppose you have seen by the newspapers,
San Francisco will have until May 1, 1911, to
show cause why Hetch-Hetchy Valley should
not be eUminated from the permit which the
Government has given the city to develop a
water supply in Yosemite Park. Meantime the
municipahty is to have detailed surveys made
of the Lake Eleanor watershed, of the Hetch-
Hetchy, and other available sources, and fur¬
nish such data and information as may be
directed by the board of army engineers ap¬
pointed by the President to act in an advisory

360

UNTO THE LAST

capacity with Secretary Ballinger. Mr. Bal¬
linger said to the San Francisco proponents of
the damming scheme, ^‘1 want to know what is
necessary so far as the Hetch-Hetchy is con¬
cerned.’^ He also said, “What this Govern¬
ment wants to know and the American people
want to know is whether it is a matter of ab¬
solute necessity for the people of San Francisco
to have this water supply. Otherwise it belongs
to the people for the purpose of a national park
for which it has been set aside.” Ballinger sug¬
gested that the Lake Eleanor plans should be
submitted to the engineers at once so that they
could have them as a basis for ascertaining if
the full development of that watershed is con¬
templated, and to make a report of its data to
the engineers as its preparation proceeded so
that they may be kept in immediate touch with
what is being done. Of the outcome of this
thorough examination of the scheme there can
be no doubt, and it must surely put the ques¬
tion at rest for all time, at least as far as our
great park is concerned, and perhaps all the
other national parks.

I have been hidden down here in Los Angeles
a month or two working hard on books. Two
or three weeks ago I sent the manuscript of a
small book to Houghton Mifflin Company, who
expect to bring it out as soon as possible. It is

361

JOHN MUIR

entitled “My First Summer in the Sierra/'
written from notes made forty-one years ago.
I have also nearly ready a lot of animal stories
for a boys^ book, drawn chiefly from my experi¬
ences as a boy in Scotland and in the wild oak
openings of Wisconsin. I have also rewritten a
lot of autobiographical notes dictated at Mr.
Harriman's Pelican Lodge on Klamath Lake
two years ago. Next month I hope to bring
together a lot of Yosemite sketches for a sort of
travelers^ guidebook, which ought to have been
written many years ago.

So you see, what with furnishing illustra¬
tions, reading proof, and getting this Yosemite
guidebook off my hands, it will not be likely
that I can find time for even a short visit to
New York this summer. Possibly, however, I
may be able to get away a few weeks in the
autumn. Nothing, as you well know, would be
more delightful than a visit to your blessed
Garrison’s-on-the-Hudson, and I am sure to
make it some time ere long, unless my usual
good luck should fail me utterly.

With warmest regards to Mrs. Osborn and
Josephine and all the family, I am, my dear
Mr. Osborn,

Ever faithfully your friend

John Muir

362

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To Mrs, J, D, Hooker

Martinez, September 15, 1910
Dear Mrs. Hooker:

Be of good cheer, make the best of whatever
befalls; keep as near to headquarters as you
may, and you will surely triumph over the ills
of life, its frets and cares, with all other vermin
of either earth or sky.

I^m ashamed to have enjoyed my visit so
much. A lone good soul can still work miracles,
charm an outlandish, crooked, zigzag flat into a
lofty inspiring Olympus.

Do you know these fine verses of Thoreau?

“I will not doubt for evermore,

Nor falter from a steadfast faith,

For though the system be turned o’er,

God takes not back the word which once he saith.

“I will, then, trust the love untold

Which not my worth nor want has bought,

Which wooed me young and wooes me old,

And to this evening hath me brought.”

Ever your friend

John Muir

To Mrs, J, D, Hooker

Martinez, December 17, 1910
Dear Mrs. Hooker:

I^m glad you’re at work on a book, for as far
as I know, however high or low Fortune’s winds

363

JOHN MUIR

may blow o^er lifers solemn main, there is noth¬
ing so saving as good hearty work. From a
letter just received from the Lark I learn the
good news that Mr. Hooker is also hard at
work with his pen.

As for myself, IVe been reading old musty
dusty Yosemite notes until I^m tired and
blinky blind, trying to arrange them in some¬
thing like lateral, medial, and terminal mo¬
raines on my den floor. I never imagined I had
accumulated so vast a number. The long
trains and embankments and heaped-up piles
are truly appalling. I thought that in a quiet
day or two I might select all that would be
required for a guidebook; but the stuff seems
enough for a score of big jungle books, and it^s
very hard, I find, to steer through it on any¬
thing like a steady course in reasonable time.
Therefore, I^m beginning to see that I’ll have
to pick out only a moderate-sized bagful fcr the
book and abandon the bulk of it to waste away
like a snowbank or grow into other forms as
time and chance may determine.

So, after all, I may be able to fly south in a
few days and alight in your fine canon garret.
Anyhow, with good will and good wishes, to
you all, I am

Ever faithfully, affectionately

John Muir
3^

UNTO THE LAST

To Mrs, J, D, Hooker

[June 26, 1911]

... I went to New Haven Tuesday morning,
the 20th, was warmly welcomed and enter¬
tained by Professor Phelps and taken to the
ball game in the afternoon. Though at first a
little nervous, especially about the approaching
honorary degree ceremony, I quickly caught
the glow of the Yale enthusiasm. Never before
have I seen or heard anything just like it. The
alumni, assembled in classes from all the coun¬
try, were arrayed in wildly colored uniforms,
and the way they rejoiced and made merry,
capered and danced, sang and yelled, marched
and ran, doubled, quadrupled, octupled is
utterly indescribable ; autumn leaves in whirl¬
winds are staid and dignified in comparison.

Then came memorable Wednesday when
we donned our radiant academic robes and
marched, to the great hall where the degrees
were conferred, shining like crow blackbirds. I
was given perhaps the best seat on the plat¬
form, and when my name was called I arose
with a grand air, shook my massive academic
plumes into finest fluting folds, as became the
occasion, stepped forward in awful majesty and
stood rigid and solemn like an ancient sequoia
while the orator poured praise on the honored
wanderer’s head — and in this heroic attitude I

365

JOHN MUIR

tliink I had better leave him. Here is what the
orator said. Pass it on to Helen at Daggett.

My love to all who love you.

Faithfully, affectionately

John Muir

To John Burroughs

Garrison, N.Y.

July 14, 1911

Dear John Burroughs:

When I was on the train passing your place I
threw you a hearty salute across the river, but
I don^t suppose that you heard or felt it. I
would have been with you long ago if I had not
been loaded down with odds and ends of duties,
book-making, book-selling at Boston, Yosemite
and Park affairs at Washington, and making
arrangements for getting off to South America,
etc., etc. I have never worked harder in my
life, although I have not very much to show for
it. I have got a volume of my autobiography
finished. Houghton Mifflin are to bring it out.
They want to bring it out immediately, but I
would like to have at least part of it run
through some suitable magazine, and thus gain
ten or twenty times more readers than would
be likely to see it in a book.

I have been working for the last month or
more on the Yosemite book, trying to finish it

366

UNTO THE LAST

before leaving for the Amazon, but I am not
suffering in a monstrous city. I am on the
top of as green a hill as I have seen in all the
State, with hermit thrushes, woodchucks, and
warm hearts, something like those about your¬
self.

I am at a place that I suppose you know well.
Professor Osbornes summer residence at Garri¬
son’s, opposite West Point. After Mrs. Harri-
man left for Arden I went down to the “Cen¬
tury” Editorial Rooms, where I was offered
every facility for writing in Gilder’s room, and
tried to secure a boarding-place near Union
Square, but the first day was so hot that it
made my head swim, and I hastily made pre¬
parations for this comfortable home up on the
hill here, where I will remain until perhaps the
15th of August, when I expect to sail.

Nothing would be more delightful than to go
from one beautiful place to another and from
one friend to another, but it is utterly impos¬
sible to visit a hundredth part of the friends
who are begging me to go and see them and at
the same time get any work done. I am now
shut up in a magnificent room pegging away at
that book, and working as hard as I ever did in
my life. I do not know what has got into me,
making so many books all at once. It is not
natural. . . .

367

JOHN MUIR

With all good wishes to your big and happy
family, I am ever

Faithfully your friend

John Muir

To Mrs. Henry Fairfield Osborn

Para, Brazil,

Avgust 29, 1911

Dear Mrs. Osborn:

Here at last is The River and thanks to your
and Mrs. Harriman’s loving care I’m well and
strong for all South American work in sight
that looks like mine.

Arrived here last eve — after a pleasant voy¬
age — a long charming shde all the way to the
equator between beautiful water and beautiful
sky.

Approaching Para, had a glorious view of
fifty miles or so of forest on the right bank of
the river. This alone is noble compensation for
my long desired and waited-for Amazon jour¬
ney, even should I see no more.

And it’s delightful to contemplate your cool
restful mountain trip which is really a part of
this equator trip. The more I see of our goodly
Godly star, the more plainly comes to sight and
mind the truth that it is all one like a face,
every feature radiating beauty on the others.

I expect to start up the river to Manaos in a

368

UNTO THE LAST

day or two on the Dennis. Will write again on
my return before going south — and will hope
to get a letter from you and Mr. Osborn, who
must be enjoying his well-earned rest. How
often IVe wished him with me. I often think of
you and Josephine among the Avalanche Lake
clintonias and linnseas. And that lovely boy
at Castle Rock. Virginia played benevolent
mother delightfully and sent me off rejoic¬
ing.

My love to each and all; ever, dear friend
and friends,

Faithfully, gratefully

John Muir

To Mrs, J. D, Hooker

Para, Brazil

September 19, 1911

... Of course you need absolute rest. Lie
down among the pines for a while, then get to
plain, pure, white love-work with Marian, to
help humanity and other mortals and the Lord
— heal the sick, cheer the sorrowful, break the
jaws of the wicked, etc. But this Amazon delta
sermon is growing too long. How glad I am
that Marian was not with me, on account of
yellow fever and the most rapidly deadly of the
malarial kinds so prevalent up the river.

Nevertheless, IVe had a most glorious time

369

JOHN MUIR

on this trip, dreamed of nearly half a century
• — have seen more than a thousand miles of the
noblest of Earth’s streams, and gained far more
telling views of the wonderful forests than I
ever hoped for. The Amazon, as you know, is
immensely broad, but for hxmdreds of miles the
steamer ran so close to the bossy leafy banks I
could almost touch the out-reaching branches
— fancy how I stared and sketched.

I was a week at Manaos on the Rio Negro
tributary, wandered in the wonderful woods,
got acquainted with the best of the citizens
through Mr. Sanford, a graduate of Yale, was
dined and guided and guarded and befriended
in the most wonderful way, and had a grand
telling time in general. I have no end of fine
things for you in the way of new beauty. The
only fevers I have had so far are burning en¬
thusiasms, but there’s no space for them in
letters.

Here, however, is something that I must tell
right now. Away up in that wild Manaos re¬
gion in the very heart of the vast Amazon basin
I found a little case of books in a lonely house.
Glancing over the titles, none attracted me
except a soiled volume at the end of one of the
shelves, the blurred title of which I was unable
to read, so I opened the glass door, opened the
book, and out of it like magic jumped Kathar->

370

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ine and Marian Hooker, apparently in the very
flesh. The book, needless to say, was ‘^Way¬
farers in Italy.’’ The joy-shock I must not try
to tell in detail, for medical Marian might call
the whole story an equatorial fever dream.

Dear, dear friend, again good-bye. Rest in
God’s peace.

Affectionately

John Muir

To Mrs, J. D. Hooker

Pyramides Hotel, Montevideo
December 6, 1911

My dear Friend :

Your letter of October 4th from San Fran¬
cisco was forwarded from Para to Buenos Aires
and received there at the American Consulate.
Your and Marian’s letter, dated August 7th,
were received at Para, not having been quite in
time to reach me before I sailed, but forwarded
by Mrs. Osborn. I can’t think how I could
have failed to acknowledge them. I have them
and others with me, and they have been read
times numberless when I was feeling lonely on
my strange wanderings in all sorts of places.

But I’m now done with this glorious conti¬
nent, at least for the present, as far as hard
journeys along rivers, across mountains and
tablelands, and through strange forests are con-

371

JOHN MUIR

cerned. IVe seen all I sought for, and far, far,
far more. From Para I sailed to Rio de Janeiro
and at the first eager gaze into its wonderful
harbor saw that it was a glacier bay, as un¬
changed by weathering as any in Alaska, every
rock in it and about it a glacial monument,
though within 23® of the equator, and feathered
with palms instead of spruces, while every
mountain and bay all the way down the coast
to the Rio Grande do Sul corroborates the
strange icy story. From Rio I sailed to Santos,
and thence struck inland and wandered most
joyfully a thousand miles or so, mostly in the
State of Parana, through millions of acres of
the ancient tree I was so anxious to find, AraU’-
caria Brasiliensis. Just think of the glow of my
joy in these noble aboriginal forests — the face
of every tree marked with the inherited experi¬
ences of millions of years. From Paranagua I
sailed for Buenos Aires; crossed the Andes to
Santiago, Chile; thence south four or five hun¬
dred miles; thence straight to the snow-line,
and found a glorious forest of Araiicaria im^
hricataj the strangest of the strange genus.

The day after to-morrow, December 8th, I
intend to sail for Teneriffe on way to South
Africa; then home some way or other. But I
can give no address until I reach New York.
I’m so glad your health is restored, and, now

372

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that you are free to obey your heart and have
your brother’s help and Marian’s cosmic energy,
yom good-doing can have no end. I’m glad you
are not going to sell the Los Angeles garret and
garden. Why, I hardly know. Perhaps because
I’m weary and lonesome, with a long hot
journey ahead, and I feel as if I were again
bidding you all good-bye. I think you may
send me a word or two to Cape Town, care the
American Consul. It would not be lost, for it
would follow me.

It’s perfectly marvelous how kind hundreds
of people have been to this wanderer, and the
new beauty stored up is far beyond telling.
Give my love to Marian, Maude, and Ellie and
all who love you. I wish you would write a hne
now and then to darling Helen. She has a httle
bungalow of her own now at 233 Formosa
Avenue, Hollywood, California.

It’s growing late, and I’ve miserable packing
to do. Good-night. And once more, dear, dear
friend, good-bye.

John Muir

373

JOHN MUm

To Mr. and Mrs. Henry Fairfield Osborn

Near Zanzibar

January 31, 1912

Dear Friends:

What a lot of wild water has been roaring
between us since those blessed Castle Rock
days! But, roll and roar as it might, you have
never been out of heart-sight.

How often IVe wished you with me on the
best of my wanderings so full of good things
guided by wonderful luck, or shall I reverently,
thankfully say Providence? Anyhow, it seems
that IVe had the most fruitful time of my hfe
on this pair of hot continents. But I must not
try to write my gains, for they are utterly un-
letterable both in size and kind. Idl tell what I
can when I see you, probably in three months
or less. From Cape Town I went north to the
Zambesi baobab forests and Victoria Falls, and
thence down through a glacial wonderland to
Beira, where I caught this steamer, and am on
my way to Mombasa and the Nyanza Lake
region. From Mombasa I intend starting
homeward via Suez and Naples and New York,
fondly hoping to find you well. In the mean¬
time I’m sending lots of wireless, tireless love
messages to each and every Osborn, for I am
Ever faithfully yours

John Muir

374

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To Mrs, Anna R, Dickey

Martinez

May 1, 1912

Dear cheery, exhilarating Mrs. Dickey:

Your fine lost letter has reached me at last.
I foimd it in the big talus-heap awaiting me
here.

The bright, shining, faithful, hopeful way
you bear your crushing burdens is purely
divine, out of darkness cheering everybody else
with noble godlike sympathy. I’m so glad you
have a home with the birds in the evergreen
oaks — the feathered folk singing for you and
every leaf shining, reflecting God’s love. Don¬
ald, too, is so brave and happy. With youth on
his side and joyful work, he is sure to grow
stronger and under every disadvantage do
more as a naturahst than thousands of others
with every resource of health and wealth and
special training.

I’m in my old library den, the house desolate,
nobody hving in it save a hungry mouse or
two. ... [I hold] dearly cherished memories
about it and the fine garden grounds full of
trees and bushes and flowers that my wife and
father-in-law and I planted — fine things from
every land.

• But there’s no good bread hereabouts and no
housekeeper, so I may never be able to make it

375

JOHN MUIR

a home, fated, perhaps, to wander until sun¬
down. Anyhow, IVe had a glorious life, and
1^11 never have the heart to complain. The
roses now are overrunning all bounds in glory
of full bloom, and the Lebanon and Himalaya
cedars, and the palms and Australian trees and
shrubs, and the oaks on the valley hills seem
happier and more exuberant than ever.

The Chelan trip would be according to my
own heart, but whether or no I can go I dinna
ken. Only lots of hard pen work seems certain.
Anywhere, anyhow, with love to Donald, I am,
Ever faithfully, affectionately yours

John Muir

To William E, Colby
and

Mr. and Mrs. Edward T. Parsons

1525 Fokmosa Avenue
Hollywood, California
June 24, 1912

Dear Mr. Colby and Mr. and Mrs. Parsons :

I thank you very much for your kind wishes
to give me a pleasant Kern River trip, and am
very sorry that work has been so unmercifully
piled upon me that I find it impossible to
escape from it, so I must just stay and work.

I heartily congratulate you and all your
merry mountaineers on the magnificent trip

376

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that lies before you. As you know, I have seen
something of nearly all the mountain-chains of
the world, and have experienced their varied
climates and attractions of forests and rivers,
lakes and meadows, etc. In fact, I have seen a
little of all the high places and low places of the
continents, but no mountain-range seems to me
so kind, so beautiful, or so fine in its sculpture
as the Sierra Nevada. If you were as free as the
winds are and the fight to choose a camp¬
ground in any part of the globe, I could not
direct you to a single place for your outing that,
all things considered, is so attractive, so ex¬
hilarating and uplifting in every way as just
the trip that you are now making. You are far
happier than you know. Good luck to you all,
and I shall hope to see you all on your return
— boys and girls, with the sparkle and ex¬
hilaration of the mountains still in your eyes.
With love and countless fondly cherished
memories.

Ever faithfully yours

John Muir

Of course, in all your camp-fire preaching
and praying you will never forget Hetch-
Hetchy.

377

JOHN MUIR

To Howard Palmer

Maetinez, Cal.

December 12, 1912

Mr. Howard Palmer

Secretary American Alpine Club
New London, Conn.

Dear Sir:

At the National Parks conference in Yosem-
ite Valley last October, called by the Honor¬
able Secretary of the Interior, comparatively
little of importance was considered. The great
question was, Shall automobiles be allowed to
enter Yosemite?’^ It overshadowed all others,
and a prodigious lot of gaseous commercial elo¬
quence was spent upon it by auto-club dele¬
gates from near and far.

The principal objection urged against the
puffing machines was that on the steep Yosem-
ite grades they would cause serious accidents.
The machine men roared in reply that far
fewer park-going people would be killed or
wounded by the auto-way than by the old
prehistoric wagon-way. All signs indicate auto¬
mobile victory, and doubtless, under certain
precautionary restrictions, these useful, pro¬
gressive, blunt-nosed mechanical beetles will
hereafter be allowed to puff their way into all
the parks and mingle their gas-breath with the
breath of the pines and waterfalls, and, from

378

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the mountaineer^s standpoint, with but little
harm or good.

In getting ready for the Canal-celebration
visitors the need of opening the Valley gates as
wide as possible was duly considered, and the
repair of roads and trails, hotel and camp build¬
ing, the supply of cars and stages and arrange¬
ments in general for getting the hoped-for
crowds safely into the Valley and out again.
But the Yosemite Park was lost sight of, as if
its thousand square miles of wonderful moun¬
tains, canons, glaciers, forests, and songful
falling rivers had no existence.

In the development of the Park a road is
needed from the Valley along the upper canon
of the Merced, across to the head of Tuolumne
Meadows, down the great Tuolumne Canon to
Hetch-Hetchy valley, and thence back to Yo¬
semite by the Big Oak Flat road. Good walkers
can go anywhere in these hospitable mountains
without artificial ways. But most visitors have
to be rolled on wheels with blankets and kitchen
arrangements.

Of course the few mountaineers present got
in a word now and then on the need of park pro¬
tection from commercial invasion like that now
threatening Hetch-Hetchy. In particular the
Secretary of the American Civic Association
and the Sierra Club spoke on the highest value

379

JOHN MUm

of wild parks as places of recreation, Nature^s
cathedrals, where all may gain inspiration and
strength and get nearer to God.

The great need of a landscape gardener to lay
out the roads and direct the work of thinning
out the heavy undergrowth was also urged.

With all good New Year wishes, I am
Faithfully yours

John Muir

To Asa K, Mcllhaney

Martinez, California
January 10, 1913

Mr. Asa K. McIlhaney
Bath, Penn.

Dear Sir:

I thank you for your fine letter, but in reply
I can’t tell which of all God’s trees I like best,
though I should write a big book trying to.
Sight-seers often ask me which is best, the
Grand Canon of Arizona or Yosemite. I
always reply that I know a show better than
either of them — both of them.

Anglo-Saxon folk have inherited love for
oaks and heathers. Of all I know of the world’s
two hundred and fifty oaks perhaps I like best
the macrocarpa, chrysolepis, lohataj Virginia
ana, agrifolia, and Michauxii, Of the little
heather folk my favorite is Cassiope; of the

380

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trees of the family, the Menzies arbutus, one
of the world’s great trees. The hickory is a
favorite genus — I like them all, the pecan the
best. Of flower trees, magnolia and liriodem
dron and the wonderful baobab; of conifers,
Sequoia gigantea, the noblest of the whole
noble race, and sugar pine, king of pines, and
silver firs, especially magnifica. The grand
larch forests of the upper Missouri and of Man¬
churia and the glorious deodars of the Hima¬
laya, araucarias of Brazil and Chile and Aus¬
tralia. The wonderful eucalyptus, two hun¬
dred species, the New Zealand metrosideros
and agathis. The magnificent eriodendron of
the Amazon and the palm and tree fern and
tree grass forests, and in our own country the
delightful linden and oxydendron and maples
and so on, without end. I may as well stop here
as anywhere.

Wishing you a happy New Year and good
times in God’s woods.

Faithfully yours

John Muir

881

JOHN MUIR

To Miss M, Merrill

Martinez, California
May 31, 1913

Dear Mina Merrill:

I am more delighted with your letter than I
can tell — to see your handwriting once more
and know that you still love me. For through
all life’s wanderings you have held a warm
place in my heart, and I have never ceased to
thank God for giving me the blessed Merrill
family as lifelong friends. As to the Scotch way
of bringing up children, to which you refer, I
think it is often too severe or even cruel. And
as I hate cruelty, I called attention to it in the
boyhood book while at the same time pointing
out the value of sound religious training with
steady work and restraint.

I’m now at work on an Alaska book, and as
soon as it is off my hands I mean to continue
the autobiography from leaving the University
to botanical excursions in the northern woods,
around Indianapohs, and thence to Florida,
Cuba, and California. This will be volume
number two.

It is now seven years since my beloved wife
vanished in the land of the leal. Both of my
girls are happily married and have homes and
children of their own. Wanda has three lively
boys, Helen has two and is living at Daggett,

382

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California. Wanda is living on the ranch in the
old adobe, while I am alone in my library den
in the big house on the hill where you and sister
Kate foimd me on your memorable visit long
ago.

As the shadows lengthen in hfe’s afternoon,
we cling all the more fondly to the friends of
our youth. And it is with the warmest grati¬
tude that I recall the kindness of all your
family when I was lying in darkness. That
Heaven may ever bless you, dear Mina, is the
heart prayer of your

Affectionate friend

John Muir

To Mrs, Henry Fairfield Osborn

Martinez

July 3, 1913

Dear Mrs. Osborn:

Warm thanks, thanks, thanks for your July
invitation to blessed Castle Kock. How it goes
to my heart all of you must know, but wae’s
me! I see no way of escape from the work
piled on me here — the gatherings of half a
century of wilderness wanderings to be sorted
and sifted into something like clear, useful
form. Never mind — for, anywhere, every¬
where in immortal soul sympathy, I^m always
with my friends, let time and the seas and con-

383

JOHN MUIR

tinents spread their years and miles as they
may.

Ever gratefully, faithfully

John Muir

,To Henry Fairfield Osborn

Martinez

July 15, 1913

Dear friend Osborn:

I had no thought of your leaving your own
great work and many-fold duties to go be¬
fore the House Committee on the everlasting
Hetch-Hetchy fight, but only to write to mem¬
bers of Congress you might know, especially to
President Wilson, a Princeton man. This is the
twenty-third year of almost continual battle
for preservation of Yosemite National Park,
sadly interrupting my natural work. Our en¬
emies now seem to be having most everything
their own wicked way, working beneath ob¬
scuring tariff and bank clouds, spending mil¬
lions of the people^s money for selfish ends.
Think of three or four ambitious, shifty traders
and politicians calling themselves “The City
of San Francisco, bargaining with the United
States for half of the Yosemite Park like
Yankee horse-traders, as if the grandest of all
our mountain playgrounds, full of God^s best
gifts, the joy and admiration of the world, were

384

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of no more account than any of the long list of
tinker tariff articles.

Where are you going this summer? Wish I
could go with you. The pleasure of my long
lovely Garrison-Hudson Castle Rock days
grows only the clearer and dearer as the years
flow by.

My love to you, dear friend, and to all who
love you.

Ever gratefully, affectionately

John Muir

To Mr, and Mrs, Henry Fairfield Osborn

Martinez
January 4, 1914

Dear friends Osborns:

With all my heart I wish you a happy New
Year. How hard you have fought in the good
fight to save the Tuolumne Yosemite I well
know. The battle has lasted twelve years,
from Pinchot and Company to President Wil¬
son, and the wrong has prevailed over the best
aroused sentiment of the whole country.

That a lane lined with lies could be forced
through the middle of the U.S. Congress is
truly wonderful even in these confused pohti-
cal days — a deviks masterpiece of log-rolling
road-making. But the approval of such a job
by scholarly, virtuous, Princeton Wilson is

385

JOHN MUIR

the greatest wonder of all! Fortunately wrong
cannot last; soon or late it must fall back home
to HadeS; while some compensating good must
surely follow.

With the new year to new work right gladly
we will go — you to your studies of God^s lang-
syne people in their magnificent Wyoming-
Idaho mausoleums, I to crystal ice.

So devoutly prays your grateful admiring
friend John Muir

To Andrew Carnegie

Maktinez, California
January 22, 1914

Many thanks, dear Mr. Carnegie, for your
admirable ^^Apprenticeship.’’ To how many
fine godly men and women has our stormy,
craggy, glacier-sculptured httle Scotland given
birth, influencing for good every country under
the sun! Our immortal poet while yet a boy
wished that for poor auld Scotland’s sake he
might “sing a sang at least.” And what a song
you have sung with your ringing, clanging ham¬
mers and furnace fires, blowing and flaming
like volcanoes — a truly wonderful Caledonian
performance. But far more wonderful is your
coming forth out of that tremendous titanic
iron and dollar work with a heart in sympathy
with all humanity.

386

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Like John Wesley, who took the world for his
parish, you are teaching and preaching over all
the world in your own Scotch way, with heroic
benevolence putting to use the mine and mill
wealth won from the iron hills. What wonder¬
ful burdens you have carried all your long life,
and seemingly so easily and naturally, going
right ahead on your course, steady as a star!
How strong you must be and happy in doing so
much good, in being able to illustrate so nobly
the national character founded on God^s im¬
mutable righteousness that makes Scotland
loved at home, revered abroad! Everybody
blessed with a drop of Scotch blood must be
proud of you and bid you godspeed.

Your devoted admirer

John Mum

To Dr, C, Hart Merriam

«

Martinez, California
February 11, 1914

Dear Dr. Merriam:

I was very glad to hear from you once more
last month, for, as you say, I havenT heard
from you for an age. I fully intended to grope
my way to Lagunitas in the fall before last, but
it is such ancient history that I have only very
dim recollections of the difficulty that hindered
me from making the trip. I hope, however, to

387

JOHN MUIR

have better luck next spring for I am really
anxious to see you all once more.

I congratulate Dorothy on her engagement
to marry Henry Abbot. If he is at all like his
blessed old grandfather he must prove a glori¬
ous prize in lifers lottery. I have been inti¬
mately acquainted with General Abbot ever
since we camped together for months on the
Forestry Commission, towards the end of
President Cleveland’s second administration.

Wanda, her husband, and three boys are
quite well, living on the ranch here, in the old
adobe, while I am hving alone in the big house
on the hill.

After hving a year or two in Los Angeles,
Helen with her two fine boys and her husband
returned to the alfaKa ranch on the edge of the
Mojave Desert near Daggett, on the Santa F4
Railway. They are all in fine health and will be
glad to get word from you.

Our winter here has been one of the stormiest
and foggiest I have ever experienced, and im-
fortimately I caught the grippe. The last two
weeks, however, the weather has been quite
bright and sunny and I hope soon to be as well
as ever and get to work again.

That a few ruthless ambitious politicians
should have been able to run a tunnel lined
with all sorts of untruthful bewildering state-

388

UNTO THE LAST

ments through both houses of Congress for
Hetch-Hetchy is wonderful, but that the Presi¬
dent should have signed the Raker Bill is most
wonderful of all. As you say, it is a monu¬
mental mistake, but it is more, it is a monu¬
mental crime.

I have not heard a word yet from the Baileys.
Hoping that they are well and looking forward
with pleasure to seeing you all soon in Cali¬
fornia, I am as ever

Faithfully yours John Muir

Despite his hopeful allusion to the grippe
which he had caught early in the winter of
1914, the disease made farther and farther in¬
roads upon his vitahty. Yet he worked away
steadily at the task of completing his Alaska
book. During the closing months he had the
aid of Mrs. Marion Randall Parsons, at whose
home the transcription of his Alaska journals
had been begun in November, 1912. Unfortu¬
nately the Hetch-Hetchy conspiracy became
acute again, and the book, barely begun, had to
be laid aside that he might save, if possible,
his beloved Tuolumne Yosemite.^^ We may
lose this particular fight he wrote to William
E. Colby, ‘^but truth and right must prevail at
last. Anyhow we must be true to ourselves and
the Lord.’^

389

JOHN MUIR

This particular battle, indeed, was lost be¬
cause the park invaders had finally got into
office a Secretary of the Interior who had previ¬
ously been on San Francisco’s payroll as an
attorney to promote the desired Hetch-Hetchy
legislation; also, because various other pohti-
cians of easy convictions on such fundamental
questions of pubhc policy as this had been won
over to a concerted drive to accomplish the
^^grab” during a special summer session when
no effective representation of opposing organi¬
zations could be secured. So flagrant was the
performance in every aspect of it that Senator
John D. Works of California afterwards intro¬
duced in the Senate a bill to repeal the Hetch-
Hetchy legislation and in his vigorous remarks
accompanying the same set forth the points on
which he justified his action. But the fate of
the Valley was sealed.

John Muir turned sadly but courageously
to his note-books and memories of the great
glacier-ploughed wilderness of Alaska. Shortly
before Christmas, 1914, he set his house in
order as if he had a presentiment that he was
leaving it for the last time, and went to pay a
hoUday visit to the home of his younger daugh- '
ter at Daggett. Upon his arrival there he was
smitten with pneumonia and was rushed to a
hospital in Los Angeles, where all his wander-

390

UNTO THE LAST

ings ended on Christmas Eve. Spread about
him on the bed, when the end came, were
manuscript sheets of his last book — ^'Travels
in Alaska’^ — to which he was bravely strug-
ghng to give the last touches before the coming
of ^Hhe long sleep.’^

CHAPTER XVIII

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

^^The last rays of the setting sun are shining
into our window at the Palace Hotel and per¬
haps it is the last sunset we shall ever see in
this city of the Golden Gate. I could not think
of leaving the Pacific Coast without saying
good-bye to you who so much love all the world
about here. California, you may say, has made
you, and you in return have made Cafifomia,
and you are both richer for having made each
other.’’ The concluding sentence of this part¬
ing message of former travel companions, sent
to John Muir in 1879 when he was exploring
the glaciers of Alaska, has grown truer each
succeeding decade since then.

Intimately as his name was already identi¬
fied with the natural beauty of California in
1879, the service which Muir was ultimately to
render to the nation was only beginning at that
time. Then there was only one national park,
that of the Yellowstone, and no national forest
reserves at all. Amid such a wealth of beautiful
forests and wildernesses as our nation then pos¬
sessed it required a very uncommon lover of

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HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

nature and of humanity to advocate provision
against a day of need. But that friend of gen¬
erations unborn arose in the person of John
Muir. Before he or any one had ever heard of
national parks the idea of preserving some
sections of our natural flora in their unspoiled
wildness arose spontaneously in his mind.

It was a lovely carex meadow beside Foun¬
tain Lake, on his father^s first Wisconsin farm,
that gave him the germinal idea of a park in
which plant societies were to be protected in
their natural state. During the middle sixties,
as he was about to leave his boyhood home for¬
ever, he found imbearable the thought of leav¬
ing this precious meadow unprotected, and
offered to purchase it from his brother-in-law
on condition that cattle and hogs be kept se¬
curely fenced out. Early correspondence shows
that he pressed the matter repeatedly, but his
relative treated the request as a sentimental
dream, and ultimately the meadow was tram¬
pled out of existence. More than thirty years
later, at a notable meeting of the Sierra Club in
1895, he for the first time made pubhc this
natural park dream of his boyhood. It was the
national park idea in miniature, and the pro¬
posal was made before even the Yellowstone
National Park had been established.

This was the type of man who during the

393

JOHN MUffi

decade between 1879 and 1889 wrote for
^‘Scribner’s Monthly” and the “Century
Magazine” a series of articles the like of which
had never been written on American forests
and scenery. Such were Muir’s articles en¬
titled “In the Heart of the California Alps,”
“Wild Sheep of the Sierra,” “Coniferous For¬
ests of the Sierra Nevada,” and “Bee-Pastures
of Cahfornia.” There was also the volume,
edited by him, entitled “Picturesque Cali¬
fornia,” with numerous articles by himself.
The remarkably large correspondence which
came to him as a result of this literary activity
shows how deep was its educative effect upon
the pubhc mind.

Then came the eventful summer of 1889, dur¬
ing which he took Robert Underwood Johnson,
one of the editors of the “Century,” camping
about Yosemite and on the Tuolumne Mead¬
ows, where, as Muir says, he showed him how
uncountable sheep had eaten and trampled out
of existence the wonderful flower gardens of the
seventies. We have elsewhere shown how the
two then and there determined to make a move
for the establishment of what is now the Yosem¬
ite National Park, and to make its area suffi¬
ciently comprehensive to include all the head¬
waters of the Merced and the Tuolumne. This
was during President Harrison’s administra-

394

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

tion, and, fortunately for the project, John W.
Noble, a faithful and far-sighted servant of the
American people, was then Secretary of the
Interior.

One may imagine with what fervor Muir
threw himself into that campaign. The series
of articles on the Yosemite region which he now
wrote for the Century^’ are among the best
things he has ever done. Public-spirited men
all over the country rallied to the support of the
National Park movement, and on the first of
October, 1890, the Yosemite National Park bill
went through Congress, though bitterly con¬
tested by all kinds of selfishness and pettifog¬
gery. A troop of cavalry immediately came to
guard the new park; the hoofed locusts were
expelled, and the flowers and undergrowth
gradually returned to the meadows and forests.

The following year (1891) Congress passed
an act empowering the President to create for¬
est reserves. This was the initial step toward a
rational forest conservation policy, and Presi¬
dent Harrison was the first to establish forest
reserves — to the extent of somewhat more
than thirteen million acres. We cannot stop to
go into the opening phases of this new move¬
ment, but the measure in which the country is
indebted to John Muir also for this public
benefit may be gathered from letters of intro-

395

JOHN MUIR

duction to scientists abroad which influential
friends gave to Muir in 1893 when he was con¬
templating extensive travels in Europe. ^Ht
gives me great pleasure/^ wrote one of them,
^Ho introduce to you Mr. John Muir, whose
successful struggle for the reservation of about
one-half of the western side of the Sierra
Nevada has made him so well known to the
friends of the forest in this country.’^

During his struggle for the forest reserva¬
tions and for the estabhshment of the Yosemite
National Park Muir had the effective coopera¬
tion of a considerable body of public-spirited
citizens of California, who in 1892 were organ¬
ized into the Sierra Club, in part, at least, for
the purpose of assisting in creating pubhc senti¬
ment and in making it effective. During its
long and distinguished pubhc service this or¬
ganization never swerved from one of its main
purposes, “to enlist the support and coopera¬
tion of the people and the government in pre¬
serving the forests and other features of the
Sierra Nevada Mountains,^’ and when that
thrilhng volume of Muir^s, “My First Summer
in the Sierra,'' appeared in 1911, it was found
to be dedicated “To the Sierra Club of Califor¬
nia, Faithful Defender of the People's Play¬
grounds."

The assistance of this Club proved invalu-

39G

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

able when Muir^s greatest opportunity for
public service came in 1896. It was then that
om* Federal Government began to realize at
last the imperative necessity of doing some¬
thing at once to check the appalling waste of
our forest resources. Among the causes which
led up to this development of conscience was
the report of Edward A. Bowers, Inspector of
the Pubhc Land Service. He estimated the
value of timber stolen from the pubhc lands
during six years in the eighties at thirty-seven
milhon doUars. To this had to be added the
vastly greater loss annually inflicted upon the
pubhc domain by sheepmen and prospectors,
who regularly set fire to the forests in autumn,
the former to secure open pasturage for their
flocks, the latter to lay bare the outcrops of
mineral-bearing rocks. But the most conse¬
quential awakening of the pubhc mind followed
the appearance of Muir’s ^^Moimtains of
Cahfornia” in 1894. All readers of it knew
immediately that the trees had foimd a de¬
fender whose knowledge, enthusiasm, and gift
of expression made his pen more powerful than
a regiment of swords. Here at last was a man
who had no axes to grind b3’' the measures he
advocated and thousands of new conservation
recruits heard the call and enlisted under his
leadership. One remarkable thing about the

397

JOHN MUIR

numerous appreciative letters he receii^ed is the
variety of persons, high and low, from whom
they came.

The reader will recall that, as early as 1876,
Muir had proposed the appointment of a
national commission to inquire into the fearful
wastage of forests, to take a survey of existing
forest lands in public ownership, and to recom¬
mend measures for their conservation. Twenty
years later, in June, 1896, Congress at last took
the required action by appropriating twenty-
five thousand dollars “to enable the Secretary
of the Interior to meet the expenses of an in¬
vestigation and report by the National Acad¬
emy of Sciences on the inauguration of a na¬
tional forestry pohcy for the forested lands of
the United States.” In pursuance of this act
Wolcott Gibbs, President of the National Acad¬
emy of Sciences, appointed as members of this
Commission Charles S. Sargent, Director of the
Arnold Arboretum; General Henry L. Abbot,
of the United States Engineer Corps; Professor
William H. Brewer of Yale University; Alex¬
ander Agassiz; Arnold Hague of the United
States Geological Survey; and Gifford Pinchot,
practical forester. It should be said to the
credit of these men that they all accepted this
appointment on the understanding that they
were to serve without pay.

398

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

It is not surprising, in view of the circum¬
stances, that Charles S. Sargent, the Chairman
of the newly appointed Commission, immedi¬
ately invited John Muir to accompany the
party on a tour of investigation, and it was
fortunate, as it turned out afterwards, that he
went as a free lance and not as an official
member of the party. During the summer of
1896, this Commission visited nearly all of the
great forest areas of the West and the North¬
west, and letters written to him later by indi¬
vidual members testify to the invaluable char¬
acter of Muir’s personal contribution to its
work.

A report, made early in 1897, embodied the
preliminary findings and recommendations of
the Commission, and on Washington’s Birth¬
day of that year President Cleveland created
thirteen forest reservations, comprising more
than twenty-one million acres. This action of
the President created a rogues’ panic among
the mining, stock, and lumber companies of the
Northwest, who were fattening on the public
domain. Through their subservient representa¬
tives in Congress they moved unitedly and
with great alacrity against the reservations. In
less than a week after the President’s proclama¬
tion they had secured in the United States
Senate, without opposition, the passage of an

399

JOHN MUIR

amendment to the Sundry Civil Bill whereby
^^all the lands set apart and reserved by Execu¬
tive orders of February 22, 1897,’^ were re¬
stored to the public domain . . . the same as if
said Executive orders and proclamations had
not been made/^ To the lasting credit of Cali¬
fornia let it. be said that the California reserva¬
tions were expressly exempted from the provi¬
sions of this nullifying amendment at the re¬
quest of the California Senators, Perkins and
White, behind whom was the public sentiment
of the State, enlightened by John Muir and
many like-minded friends.

The great battle between the public interest
and selfish special interests, or between ^land¬
scape righteousness and the devil, as Muir
used to say, was now joined for a fight to the
finish. The general public as yet knew httle
about the value of forests as conservers and
regulators of water-flow in streams. They knew
even less about their effect upon rainfall, cli¬
mate, and public weKare, and the day when
forest reserves would be needed to meet the
failing timber supply seemed far, far off.

But there is nothing like a great conflict be¬
tween public and private interests to create an
atmosphere in which enlightening discussion
can do its work, and no one knew this better
than John Muir. ^^This forest battle, he

400

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

wrote, part of the eternal conflict between
right and wrong. . . . The sooner it is stirred up
and debated before the people the better, for
thus the hght will be let into it.’^ When travel¬
ing with the Forestry Commission he had on
one occasion seen an apparently well-behaved
horse suddenly take a fit of bucking, kicking,
and biting that made every one run for safety.
Its strange actions were a mystery until a yel¬
low jacket emerged from its ear!

Muir seized the occurrence for an explana¬
tion of the sudden and insanely violent outcry
against forest reservations. ^^One man,^^ he
said, ^^with a thousand-dollar yellow jacket in
his ear will make more bewildering noise and do
more effective kicking and fighting on certain
public measures than a million working men
minding their own business, and whose cash
interests are not visibly involved. But as soon
as the light comes the awakened million creates
a public opinion that overcomes wrong however
cunningly veiled.

He was not mistaken, as we shall see,
though for a time wrong seemed triumphant.
The amendment nullifying the forest reserva¬
tions died through lack of President Cleve¬
land’s signature. But in the extra session,
which followed the inauguration of President
McKinley, a bill was passed in June, 1897, that

401

JOHN MUIR

restored to the public domain, until March 1,
1898, all the forest reservations created by
Cleveland, excepting those of California. This
interval, of course, was used shamelessly by
all greedy forest-grabbers, while Congress was
holding the door open! Emboldened by suc¬
cess, certain lumbermen even tried to secure
Congressional authority to cut the wonderful
sequoia grove in the General Grant National
Park.

But John Muir^s Scotch fighting blood was
up now. Besides, his friends. East and West,
were calhng for the aid of his eagle’s quill to
enlighten the citizens of our country on the
issues involved in the conflict. ^^No man in the
world can place the forests’ claim before them
so clearly and forcibly as your own dear self,”
wrote his friend Charles Sprague Sargent,
Chairman of the Commission now under fire.
^^No one knows so well as you the value of our
forests — that their use for lumber is but a
small part of the value.” He proposed that
Muir write syndicate letters for the public
press. There is no one in the United States,”
he wrote, '^who can do this in such a telling
way as you can, and in writing these letters you
will perform a patriotic service.”

Meanwhile the public press was becoming
interested in the issue. To a request from the

402

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

editor of ‘^Harper’s Weekly Muir responded
with an article entitled ‘^Forest Reservations
and National Parks/’ which appeared oppor¬
tunely in June, 1897. The late Walter Hines
Page, then editor of the ^‘Atlantic Monthly,”
opened to him its pages for the telling contribu¬
tion entitled ^^The American Forests.” In both
these articles Muir’s style rose to the impas¬
sioned oratory of a Hebrew prophet arraigning
wickedness in high places, and preaching the
sacred duty of so using the country we live in
that we may not leave it ravished by greed and
ruined by ignorance, but may pass it on to
future generations undiminished in richness
and beauty.

Unsparingly he exposed to public scorn the
methods by which the government was being
defrauded. One typical illustration must suf¬
fice. ^Ht was the practice of one lumber com¬
pany,” he writes, ^Ho hire the entire crew of
every vessel which might happen to touch at
any port in the redwood belt, to enter one hun¬
dred and sixty acres each and immediately
deed the land to the company, in consideration
of the company’s paying all expenses and giv¬
ing the jolly sailors fifty dollars apiece for their
trouble.”

This was the type of undesirable citizens
who, through their representatives in Congress,

403

JOHN MUIR

raised the hue and cry that poor settlers, look¬
ing for homesteads, were being driven into
more hopeless poverty by the forest reserva¬
tions — a piece of sophistry through which
Muir^s trenchant language cut like a Damascus
blade.

The outcries we hear against forest reservations
[he wrote] come mostly from thieves who are
wealthy and steal timber by wholesale. They have
so long been allowed to steal and destroy in peace
that any impediment to forest robbery is denounced
as a cruel and irreligious interference with ‘^vested
rights,” likely to endanger the repose of all ungodly
welfare. Gold, gold, gold! How strong a voice that
metal has! . . . Even in Congress, a sizable chunk of
gold, carefully concealed will outtalk and outfight
all the nation on a subject like forestry ... in which
the money interests of only a few are conspicuously
involved. Under these circumstances the bawling,
blethering oratorical stuff drowns the voice of God
himself . . . Honest citizens see that only the rights
of the government are being trampled, not those of
the settlers. Merely what belongs to all alike is re¬
served, and every acre that is left should be held
together under the federal government as a basis for
a general policy of administration for the public
good. The people will not always be deceived by
selfish opposition, whether from lumber and mining
corporations or from sheepmen and prospectors,
however cunningly brought forward underneath
fables of gold.

He concluded this article with a remark-

404

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

able peroration which no tree-lover could read
without feeling, like the audiences that heard
the philippics of Demosthenes, that something
must be done immediately.

Any fool [he wrote] can destroy trees. They can¬
not run away; and if they could, they would still be
destroyed — chased and hunted down as long as fun
or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides,
branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones.
Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting
avail much towards getting back anything like the
noble primeval forests. During a man’s life only
saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees

tens of centuries old — that have been de¬
stroyed. It took more than three thousand years to
make some of the trees in these Western woods —
trees that are still standing in perfect strength and
beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of
the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful
centuries since Christ’s time — and long before that
— God has cared for these trees, saved them from
drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand strain¬
ing, leveling tempests and floods; but He cannot
save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.

The period of nine months during which the
Cleveland reservations had been suspended
came to an end on the first of March, 1898.
Enemies of the reservation policy again started
a move in the Senate to annul them all. “In
the excitement and din of this confounded
[Spanish- American] War, the silent trees stand

405

JOHN MUIR

a poor show for justice/’ wrote Muir to his
friend C. S. Sargent, who was sounding the
alarm. Meanwhile Muir was conducting a sur¬
prisingly active campaign by post and tele¬
graph, and through the Sierra Club. At last his
efforts began to take effect and his confidence
in the power of light to conquer darkness was
justified. ^^You have evidently put in some
good work,” wrote Sargent, who was keeping
closely in touch with the situation. On Satur¬
day all the members of the Pubhc Lands Com¬
mittee of the House agreed to oppose the Sen¬
ate amendment wiping out the reservations.”
A large surviving correspondence shows how he
continued to keep a strong hand on the helm.
On the eighth of July the same friend, who was
more than doing his own part, wrote, “Thank
Heaven! the forest reservations are safe . . . for
another year.” As subsequent events have
shown, they have been safe ever since. One gets
directly at the cause of this gratifying result in
a sentence from a letter of John F. Lacey, who
was then Chairman of the Public Lands Com¬
mittee of the House. In discussing the con¬
flicting testimony of those who were urging
various policies of concession toward cattle and
sheep men in the administration of the reserves
he said, “Mr. Muir’s judgment will probably
be better than that of any one of them.”

406

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

We have been able to indicate only in the
briefest possible manner the decisive part that
Muir played in the estabUshment and defence
of the thirty-nine milhon acres of forest re¬
serves made during the Harrison and Cleveland
administrations. But even this bare glimpse of
the inside history of that great struggle reveals
the magnitude of the service John Muir ren¬
dered the nation in those critical times.

There were not lacking those who charged
him with being an advocate of conservatism
without use. But this criticism came from
interested persons — abusers, not legitimate
users — and is wholly false.

The United States Government [he said] has al¬
ways been proud of the welcome it has extended
to good men of every nation seeking freedom and
homes and bread. Let them be welcomed still as
nature welcomes them, to the woods as well as the
prairies and plains. . . . The ground will be glad to
feed them, and the pines will come down from the
mountains for their homes as willingly as the cedars
came from Lebanon for Solomon^s temple. Nor will
the woods be the worse for this use, or their benign
influences be diminished any more than the sun is
diminished by shining. Mere destroyers, however,
tree-killers, spreading death and confusion in the
fairest groves and gardens ever planted, let the
government hasten to cast them out and make an
end of them. For it must be told again and again,
and be burningly borne in mind, that just now,

407

. JOHN MUIR

while protective measures are being deliberated lan¬
guidly, destruction and use are speeding on faster
and farther every day. The axe and saw are insanely
busy, chips are flying thick as snowflakes, and every
summer thousands of acres of priceless forests, with
their underbrush, soil, springs, climate, scenery, and
religion, are vanishing away in clouds of smoke,
while, except in the national parks, not one forest
guard is employed.

Stripped of metaphor, this moving appeal of
John Muir to Uncle Sam was an appeal to the
intelligence of the American people, and they
did not disappoint his faith in their competence
to deal justly and farsightedly with this pro¬
blem. Great as was the achievement of rescu¬
ing in eight years more than thirty-nine million
acres of forest from deliberate destruction by
sheeping, lumbering, and burning, it was only
an earnest of what awakened public opinion
was prepared to do when it should find the
right representative to carry it into force. That
event occurred when Theodore Roosevelt came
to the Presidency of the United States, and it
is the writer^s privilege to supply a bit of un¬
written history on the manner in which Muir^s
informed enthusiasm and Roosevelt’s courage
and love of action were brought into coopera¬
tion for the country’s good. In March, 1903,
Dr. Chester Rowell, a Senator of the California
Legislature, wrote to Muir confidentially as

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HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

follows: “From private advices from Washing¬
ton I learn that President Roosevelt is desirous
of taking a trip into the High Sierra during his
visit to California, and has expressed a wish to
go with you practically alone. ... If he at¬
tempts anything of the kind, he wishes it to be
entirely unknown, carried out with great se¬
crecy so that the crowds will not follow or an¬
noy him, and he suggested that he could foot it
and rough it with you or anybody else.’’

John Muir had already engaged passage for
Europe in order to visit, with Professor Sar¬
gent, the forests of Japan, Russia, and Man¬
churia, and felt constrained to decline. But
upon the urgent solicitation of President
Benjamin Ide Wheeler, and following the re¬
ceipt of a friendly letter from President Roose¬
velt, he postponed his sailing date, writing to
Professor Sargent, “An influential man from
Washington wants to make a trip into the
Sierra with me, and I might be able to do some
forest good in freely talking around the camp¬
fire.”

By arrangement Muir joined the President
at Raymond on Friday, the fifteenth of May,
and at the Mariposa Big Trees the two inexor¬
ably separated themselves from the company
and disappeared in the woods until the follow¬
ing Monday. Needless to say this was not

409

JOHN MUIR

what the disappointed politicians would have
chosen, but their chagrin fortunately was as
dust in the balance against the good of the
forests.

In spite of efforts to keep secret the Presi¬
dent's proposed trip to Yosemite, he had been
met at Raymond by a big crowd. Emerging
from his car in rough camp costume, he said:

Ladies and Gentlemen: I did not realize that
I was to meet you to-day, still less to address an
audience like this ! I had only come prepared to
go into Yosemite with John Muir, so I must ask
you to excuse my costume.’’ This statement
was met by the audience with cries of ^^It is all
right ! ” And it was all right. For three glorious
days Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir were
off together in Yosemite woods and on Yose¬
mite trails. Just how much was planned by
them, in those days together, for the future
welfare of this nation we probably never shall
fully know, for death has sealed the closed ac¬
counts of both. But I am fortunately able to
throw some direct light upon the attendant cir¬
cumstances and results of the trip.

While I was in correspondence with Theodore
Roosevelt in 1916 over a book I had published
on the Old Testament, he wrote, ^Gsn’t there
some chance of your getting to this side of the
continent before you write your book on Muir?

410

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

Then youT come out here to Sagamore Hill;
and V\l tell you all about the trip, and give you
one very amusing instance of his quaint and
most unworldly forgetfulness/’

In November of the same year it was my
privilege to go for a memorable visit to Saga¬
more Hill, and while Colonel Roosevelt and I
were pacing briskly back and forth in his li¬
brary, over lion skins and other trophies, he told
about the trip with John Muir, and the impres¬
sion which his deep sohcitude over the destruc¬
tion of our great forests and scenery had made
upon his mind. Roosevelt had shown himself a
friend of the forests before this camping trip
with Muir, but he came away with a greatly
quickened conviction that vigorous action must
be taken speedily, ere it should be too late.
Muir’s accounts of the wanton forest-destruc¬
tion he had witnessed, and the frauds that had
been perpetrated against the government in the
acquisition of redwood forests, were not with¬
out effect upon Roosevelt’s statesmanship, as
we shall see. Nor must we, in assessing the near
and distant public benefits of this trip, overlook
the fact that it was the beginning of a life¬
long friendship between these two men. By a
strange fatality Muir’s own letter accounts of
what occurred on the trip went from hand to
hand until they were lost. There survives a

411

JOHN MUIR

passage in a letter to his wife in which he writes:
“ I had a perfectly glorious time with the Presi¬
dent and the mountains. I never before had
a more interesting, hearty, and manly com¬
panion.^^ To his friend Merriam he wrote:

Camping with the President was a memorable
experience. I fairly fell in love with him.^^
Roosevelt, John Muir, the Big Trees, and the
lofty summits that make our Range of
Light ” I — who could think of an association of
men and objects more elementally great and
more fittingly allied for the public good? In a
stenographically reported address delivered by
Roosevelt at Sacramento immediately after his
return from the mountains, we have a hint of
what the communion of these two greatest out¬
door men of our time was going to mean for the
good of the country.

I have just come from a four days’ rest in Yosem-
ite [he said], and I wish to say a word to you here
in the capital city of California about certain of
your great natural resources, your forests and your
water supply coming from the streams that find
their sources among the forests of the mountains.
. . . No small part of the prosperity of California in
the hotter and drier agricultural regions depends
upon the preservation of her water supply; and the
water supply cannot be preserved unless the forests
are preserved. As regards some of the trees, I want
them preserved because they are the only things of

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

their kind in the world. Lying out at night under
those giant sequoias was lying in a temple built by
no hand of man, a temple grander than any human
architect could by any possibility build, and I hope
for the preservation of the groves of giant trees
limply because it would be a shame to our civiliza¬
tion to let them disappear. They are monuments in
themselves.

I ask for' the preservation of other forests on
grounds of wise and far-sighted economic policy. I
do not ask that lumbering be stopped . . . only that
the forests be so used that not only shall we here,
this generation, get the benefit for the next few
years, but that our children and our children's chil¬
dren shall get the benefit. In California I am im¬
pressed by how great the State is, but I am even
more impressed by the immensely greater greatness
that lies in the future, and I ask that your marvel¬
ous natural resources be handed on unimpaired to
your posterity. We are not building this country of
ours for a day. It is to last through the ages.

Let us now recall Muir^s modest excuse for
postponing a world tour in order to go alone
into the mountains with Theodore Roosevelt
— that he might be able to do some forest
good in freely talking around the camp-fire.^'
It was in the glow of those camp-fires that
Muir^s enlightened enthusiasm and Roosevelt^s
courage were fused into action for the pubhc
good. The magnitude of the result was aston¬
ishing and one for which this country can never
be sufficiently grateful. When Roosevelt came

413

JOHN MUIR

to the White House in 1901, the total National
Forest area amounted to 46,153,119 acres, and
we have already seen what a battle it cost Muir
and his friends to prevent enemies in Congress
from securing the annulment of Cleveland’s
twenty-five million acres of forest reserves.
When he left the White House, in the spring of
1909, he had set aside more than one hundred
and forty-eight million acres of additional
National Forests — more than three times as
much as Harrison, Cleveland, and McKinley
combined! Similarly the number of National
Parks was doubled during his administration.

But the Monuments and Antiquities Act,
passed by Congress during Roosevelt’s ad¬
ministration, gave him a new, unique oppor¬
tunity. During the last three years of his pre¬
sidency he created by proclamation sixteen
National Monuments. Among them was the
Grand Canon of the Colorado with an area of
806,400 acres. Efforts had been made, ever
since the days of Benjamin Harrison, to have
the Grand Canon set aside as a national
park, but selfish opposition always carried the
day. Sargent and Johnson and Page had re¬
peatedly appealed to Muir to write a descrip¬
tion of the Canon. ^^It is absolutely neces¬
sary,” wrote Page in 1898, ^Hhat this great
region as well as the Yosemite should be de-

414

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

scribed by you, else you will not do the task
that God sent you to do.’’ When in 1902 his ,
masterly description did appear, it led to re-
. newed, but equally futile, efforts to have this
wonder of earth sculpture included among our
national playgrounds. Then Muir passed on to
Roosevelt the suggestion that he proclaim the
Canon a national monument. A monument
under ground was a new idea, but there was in
it nothing inconsistent with the Monuments
and Antiquities Act, and so Roosevelt, with his
characteristic dash, in January, 1908, declared
the whole eight hundred thousand acres of the
Canon a National Monument and the whole
nation smiled and applauded. Subsequently
Congress, somewhat grudgingly, changed its
status to that of a national park, thus realizing
the purpose for which Roosevelt’s proclama¬
tion reserved it at the critical time.

The share of John Muir in the splendid
achievements of these Rooseveltian years
would be difficult to determine precisely, for his
part was that of inspiration and advice — ele¬
ments as imponderable as sunlight, but as all-
pervasively powerful between friends as the
pull of gravity across stellar spaces. And fast
friends they remained to the end, as is shown
by the letters that passed between them.
Neither of them could feel or act again as if.

415

JOHN MUIR

they had not talked “forest good’^ together
beside Yosemite camp-fires. “I wish I could see
you in person/’ wrote Roosevelt in 1907 at the
end of a letter about national park matters. “I
wish I could see you in person; and how I do
wish I were again with you camping out under
those great sequoias, or in the snow under the
silver firs!”

In 1908 occurred an event that threw a deep
shadow of care and worry and heart-breaking
work across the last six years of Muir’s life —
years that otherwise would have gone into
books which perforce have been left forever
unwritten. We refer to the granting of a permit
by James R. Garfield, then Secretary of the
Interior, to the city of San Francisco to invade
the Yosemite National Park in order to convert
the beautiful Hetch-Hetchy Valley into a reser¬
voir. In Muir’s opinion it was the greatest
breach of sound conservation principles in a
whole century of improvidence, and in the dark
and devious manner of its final accomplishment
a good many things still wait to be brought to
light. The following letter to Theodore Roose¬
velt, then serving his second term in the White
House, is a frank presentation of the issues
involved.

416

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

_ _ _ •

To Theodore Roosevelt

[Martinez, California
April 21, 1908]

Dear Mr. President:

I am anxious that the Yosemite National
Park may be saved from all sorts of commer¬
cialism and marks of man’s work other than the
roads, hotels, etc., required to make its wonders
and blessings available. For as far as I have
seen there is not in all the wonderful Sierra, or
indeed in the world, another so grand and won¬
derful and useful a block of Nature’s mountain
handiwork.

There is now under consideration, as doubt¬
less you well know, an apphcation of San Fran¬
cisco supervisors for the use of the Hetch-
Hetchy Valley and Lake Eleanor as storage
reservoirs for a city water supply. This ap¬
plication should, I think, be denied, especially
the Hetch-Hetchy part, for this Valley, as you
will see by the inclosed description, is a counter¬
part of Yosemite, and one of the most sublime
and beautiful and important features of the
Park, and to dam and submerge it would be
hardly less destructive and deplorable in its ef¬
fect on the Park in general than would be the
damming of Yosemite itself. For its falls and
groves and delightful camp-grounds are sur-

417

JOHN MUIR

passed or equaled only in Yosemite, and fur¬
thermore it is the hall of entrance to the grand
Tuolumne Canon, which opens a wonderful way
to the magnificent Tuolumne Meadows, the fo¬
cus of pleasure travel in the Park and the grand
central camp-ground. If Hetch-Hetchy should
be submerged, as proposed, to a depth of one
hundred and seventy-five feet, not only would
the Meadows be made utterly inaccessible
along the Tuolumne, but this glorious canon
way to the High Sierra would be blocked.

I am heartily in favor of a Sierra or even a
Tuolimme water supply for San Francisco, but
all the water required can be obtained from
sources outside the Park, leaving the twin
valleys, Hetch-Hetchy and Yosemite, to the
use they were intended for when the Park was
established. For every argument advanced for
making one into a reservoir would apply with
equal force to the other, excepting the cost of
the required dam.

The few promoters of the present scheme are
‘ not unknown around the boundaries of the
Park, for some of them have been trying to
break through for years. However able they
may be as capitalists, engineers, lawyers, or
even philanthropists, none of the statements
they have made descriptive of Hetch-Hetchy
dammed or undammed is true, but they all

418

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

show forth the proud sort of confidence that
comes of a good, sound, substantial, irrefra¬
gable ignorance.

For example, the capitalist Mr. James D.
Phelan says, “There are a thousand places
in the Sierra equally as beautiful as Hetch-
Hetchy: it is inaccessible nine months of the
year, and is an unlivable place the other
three months because of mosquitoes.’^ On the
contrary, there is not another of its kind in all
the Park excepting Yosemite. It is accessible
all the year, and is not more mosquitoful than
Yosemite. “The conversion of Hetch-Hetchy
into a reservoir will simply mean a lake instead
of a meadow.” But Hetch-Hetchy is not a
meadow: it is a Yosemite Valley. . . . These
sacred mountain temples are the holiest ground
that the heart of man has consecrated, and it
behooves us all faithfully to do our part in see¬
ing that our wild mountain parks are passed on
unspoiled to those who come after us, for they
are national properties in which every man has
a right and interest.

I pray therefore that the people of California
be granted time to be heard before this reser¬
voir question is decided, for I believe that as
soon as light is cast upon it, nine tenths or more
of even the citizens of San Francisco would be
opposed to it. And what the public opinion of

419

JOHN MUIR

the world would be may be guessed by the case
of the Niagara Falls.

Faithfully and devotedly yours

John Muie

O for a tranquil camp hour with you like
those beneath the sequoias in memorable 1903 !

Muir did not know at the time, and it was a
discouraging shock to discover the fact, that
Chief Forester Gifford Pinchot had on May 28,
1906, written a letter to a San Francisco city
official not only suggesting, but urging, that
San Francisco ^^make provision for a water
supply from the Yosemite National Park.’’ In
the work of accomplishing this scheme, he de¬
clared, ^^I will stand ready to render any assist¬
ance in my power.” Six months later he wrote
again to the same official, saying: “I cannot, of
course, attempt to forecast the action of the
new Secretary of the Interior [Mr. Garfield] on
the San Francisco watershed question, but my
advice to you is to assume that his attitude
will be favorable, and to make the necessary
preparations to set the case before him. I had
supposed from an item in the paper that the
city had definitely given up the Lake Eleanor
plan and had purchased one of the other
systems.”

420

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

It was not surprising that his forecast of an
action, which he already stood pledged to
further with any means in his power, although
he knew other sources to be available, proved
correct. Neither Mr. Pinchot nor Mr. Garfield
had so much as seen the Valley, and the lan¬
guage of the latter’s permit shows that his
decision was reached on partisan misrepresen¬
tations of its character which were later dis¬
proved in public hearings when the San Fran¬
cisco authorities, unable to proceed with the
revocable Garfield permit, applied to Congress
for a confirmation of it through an exchange of
lands. To take one of the two greatest wonders
of the Yosemite National Park and hand it
over, as the New York “Independent” justly
observed, “ without even the excuse of a real
necessity, to the nearest hungry municipality
that asks for it, is nothing less than conserva¬
tion buried and staked to the ground. Such
guardianship of our national resources would
make every national park the back-yard annex
of a neighboring city.”

Muir’s letter to Roosevelt showed him that
his official advisers were thinking more of
political favor than of the integrity of the
people’s playground; that, in short, a mistake
had been made; and he wrote Muir that he
would endeavor to have the project confined to

421

JOHN MUIR

Lake Eleanor. But his administration came to
an end without definite steps taken in the
matter one way or another. President Taft,
however, and Secretary Ballinger directed the
city and county of San Francisco, in 1910, ^Ho
show why the Hetch-Hetchy Valley should not
be eliminated from the Garfield permit.^’
President Taft also directed the War Depart¬
ment to appoint an Advisory Board of Army
Engineers to assist the Secretary of the Interior
in passing upon the matters submitted to the
Interior Department under the order to show
cause.

In March, 1911, Secretary Ballinger was
succeeded by Walter L. Fisher, during whose
official term the city authorities requested and
obtained five separate continuances, appar¬
ently in the hope that a change of administra¬
tion would give them the desired political pull
at Washington. Meantime the Advisory Board
of Army Engineers reported: ^^The Board is of
the opinion that there are several sources of
water supply that could be obtained and used
by the City of San Francisco and adjacent
communities to supplement the near-by sup¬
plies as the necessity develops. From any one
of these sources the water is sufficient in quan¬
tity and is, or can be made suitable in quality,
while the engineering difficulties are not insur-

422

HIS PUBLIC SERVICE

mountable. The determining factor is prin¬
cipally one of cost.’^

Under policies of National Park protection
now generally acknowledged to be binding
upon those who are charged to administer them
for the public good, the finding of the army
engineers should have made it impossible to
destroy the Hetch-Hetchy Valley for a mere
commercial difference in the cost of securing a
supply of water from any one of several other
adequate sources. But, as Muir states in one of
his letters, ^Hhe wrong prevailed over the best
aroused sentiment of the entire country.”

The compensating good which he felt sure
would arise, even out of this tragic sacrifice,
must be sought in the consolidation of public
sentiment against any possible repetition of
such a raid. In this determined public senti¬
ment, aroused by Muir^s leadership in the long
fight, his spirit still is watching over the
people’s playgrounds.

THE END

INDEX

Abbot, General, Henry L,, of
the National Forestry Com¬
mission, ii, 299, 388, 398.

Abbot, Henry, ii, 388.

Advisory Board of Army En¬
gineers, its report on water
supply of San Francisco, ii,
422, 423.

Africa, visited by Muir, ii, 354,
374.

Agassiz, Louis, his statement,
“a physical fact is as sacred
as a moral principle,” i, 146;
in the Yosemite, 230; influ¬
ence of, on Muir, 253; on
Muir’s studies, 342; his
opinion of Muir, ii, 292, 293;
of the National Forestry
Commission, 398.

Alaska, Muir goes to, ii, 123;
letters to the ‘‘Evening
Bulletin” on, 123; Muir
leaves on second trip to, 137 ;
account of Muir’s second
trip to, 138-61; Muir’s third
trip to, 245; description of
trip to, in the ‘‘Century,”
304; studying forest trees in,
305; Harriman Expedition
to, 318, 320-33.

Alaska Commercial Company,
ii, 168, 169.

Alhambra Valley, ii, 99, 99 w.,
130.

Alleghanies, the, trip to, ii, 311.

Allen, Mr., ascends Mount
Hamilton with Muir, ii, 71.

Amazon, the, Muir’s plan to
float down, on raft, i, 173,
174; visited by Muir, ii, 354,
370.

‘‘American Forests,” ii, 305,
403.

Andrews, E. C., tribute to
Muir, i, 359.

Animals, Muir’s observation of,

i, 40-42; Muir’s interest in,
42-44; the mechanistic in¬
terpreters of, 42, 43.

Araucaria forests of Brazil, ii,
354, 372.

Armes, Professor William
Dallam, and the Sierra Club,

ii, 256.

Athense Literary and Debating
Society, i, 115.

‘‘Atlantic Monthly,” articles of
Muir published in, ii, 305,
306, 339, 403.

Audubon, John James, natural¬
ist, i, 36.

Auroral display, ii, 154, 155.

Australia, visited by Muir, ii,
350.

Autobiography, of Muir,
quoted, i, 119-29, 153-56,
180-200, 207, 208; ii, 193,
194, 204-06, 248-51, 296;
taken down from dictation
by direction of E. H. Harri:-
man, 120, 318; Muir urged
to write, 317; referred to
by Muir, 359, 362, 366, 382.

Averell, Elizabeth, ii, 329.

Avery, Benjamin P., takes over
editorial direction of the
‘‘Overland Monthly,” i,
317; ii, 4; Minister to China,
5; death, 5.

Badfe, W. F., on visit at Saga¬
more Hill, ii, 410, 411.

425

INDEX

Ballinger, Richard A.’, Secre¬
tary of the Interior, ii, 361,
422.

Baobab trees, ii, 354, 374.

Baptism, Muir’s views of, i, 217.

Bear, visits camp at Bridal Veil
Meadows, i, 186; attack on
sheep made by, 199.

Beardslee, Commander, ii, 152.

Bears, raid provisions, ii, 28.

“Bee-Pastures of California,”
ii, 394.

Bering Sea, formation of, ii, 173.

Bering Strait, formation of, ii,
173.

Berlin, visited by Muir, ii, 350.

Bible, Daniel Muir’s idea of,
18-22 ; Muir’s familiarity
with, 26, 27; Daniel Muir’s
insistence on the word of, 71-
74; Muir’s changing views of,
145-48.

Bidwell, Annie E. K., quoted on
Muir, ii, 72.

Bidwell, General John, visited
by Muir, ii, 72.

Bidwell, General John and Mrs.,
letters to, ii, 73, 87, 242.

Bierce, Ambrose, contributor
to the “Overland Monthly,”
ii, 4.

Black, Mr., ii, 21, 22.

Black, Mrs., ii, 29.

Black Hills, South Dakota, ii,
300, 301.

Black’s Hotel, Yosemite, i, 241,
299, 314, 315, 365; ii, 236.

Blake, William Phipps, mis¬
takenly credited with being
the originator of the erosian
theory, i, 308 n., 356.

Blakley, Hamilton, husband
of Mary Muir, i, 7.

Bloody Canon, i, 233.

Boise, James R., Professor of
Greek, University of Mich¬
igan, i, 114.

Boling, Captain, enters Hetch-
Hetchy, i, 310.

Boone and Crockett Club, ad¬
dresses vote of thanks to Pre¬
sident Harrison and Secretary
Noble, ii, 258.

Boston, i, references to, 228,
256, 261; Muir in, ii, 266,
298, 312.

Boston Society of Natural His¬
tory, i, 326.

Botany, Muir’s first lesson in, i,
95; Muir’s enthusiasm for
study of, 95-97; practicing,
in Wisconsin River valley,
97-113; trip to Canada in in¬
terest of, 117-51.

Bowers, Edward A., his serv¬
ices to the cause of forest
conservation, ii, 257 n.; In¬
spector of the Public Land
Service, 397.

Boyce, Colonel, ii, 132.

Bradley, Cornelius Beach, and
the Sierra Club, ii, 256.

Brawley, Mr., ascends Mount
Hamilton with Muir, ii, 71.

Brazil, visited by Muir, ii, 354.

Bremer, Mount, ii, 41.

Brewer, Professor William H.,
assistant of Whitney, i, 275;
of the National Forestry
Commission, ii, 299, 398; on
the Harriman Alaska Expedi¬
tion, 321, 332.

Bridal Veil Fall, i, 185.

Broderick, Mount, i, 275.

Brown, Grace Blakley, daugh¬
ter of Mary Muir, i, 5.

Brown, John, author of “Rab
and His Friends,” ii, 272,
273.

Browne, Francis Fisher, editor
of “The Dial,” letter to, ii,
358-60.

“Browne the Beloved,” ii,
358 n.

426

INDEX

Bums, Robert, quoted, ii, 285;
reciting his verses, 359.

Burroughs, John, discussion
about animals with Muir, i,
42; sees Muir in New York,
ii, 264; refuses to go to
Europe with Muir, 265; vis¬
ited by Muir, 298; his words
about Muir, 306; on the
Harriman Alaska Expedi¬
tion, 321-23, 326, 332; Muir
proposes that he go to South
America, 358; and Bums’s
poems, 359; letter to, ii,
366.

Butler, Professor James Davie,
of University of Wisconsin,

i, 81; Muir writes to, about
finding Calypso, 121; sends
letter of introduction to
Muir, 154; reference to, 220;
letter to, ii, 231.

Butterflies, collected for Ed¬
wards- by Muir, i, 263, 264,
383. . - •

‘‘Byways of Yosemite Travel,”

ii, 10.

Cable, George W., letter from,
ii, 285, 286.

California, State of, systematic
geological survey of, begun,
i, 274; political factions in, ii,
37 ; and Muir, what they did
for each other, 392; forest
reservations of, exempted
from nullifying amendment,
400.

California State Geological Sur¬
vey, i, 302, 303.

Calminetti Bill, ii, 257.

Calypso borealis, discovery of,
in Canadian swamp, i, 120,
121.

Cambridge, visited by Muir, ii,
270, 298.

Campbell, Mrs., of Highland

Scotch farm in Canada, i,
123, 124.

Campbell, Alexander and Wil¬
liam, i, 123-25.

Canada, sojourn of Muir in,
1864-1866, i, 117-51.

Canby, William M., makes ex¬
pedition to study forest trees
in Rocky Mountains and
Alaska, ii, 304, 305; makes
trip with Muir and Sargent
into the Alleghanies, 311,
312.

Carlyle, Jeanie Welch, her
grave, ii, 277.

Carmany, John H., spent
thirty thousand dollars on
the ‘‘Overland Monthly,” i,
317; ii, 4; gives up the ‘‘Over¬
land,” 5.

Carmelita, Mrs. Carr’s South¬
ern home, ii, 66.

Carnegie, Andrew, his accom¬
plishment, ii, 386, 387.

Carr, Professor Ezra Slocum,
of University of Wisconsin,

i, 80, 81; appointed to pro¬
fessorship in University of
California, 202; invites Muir
to visit him, 202; work ac¬
complished by, 236; visited
by Emerson, 258; a calm
thinker, 321; death of son,
399; elected State Superin¬
tendent of Public Instruc¬
tion, ii, 37.

Carr, Jeanne C., becomes ac¬
quainted with Muir, i, 80.
138; reports on Muir’s in¬
ventions, 81 ; value of hei
friendship to Muir, 138-44,
205, 227, 334, 336, 340, 387;

ii, 26; on Muir’s ‘‘good de¬
mon,” i, 157 ; removal to Cal¬
ifornia, 202; abets Muir in
plan for South American
trip, 203; on hordes that

INDEX

visit the Yosemite, 221; fa¬
vors American colonization
scheme, 234, 239 ; sends greet¬
ing to Muir, 240; visited by
Emerson, 258; prophecy of,
261; introduces Henry Ed¬
wards, 262; tries to bring
Muir into “waiting society,”
265, 293; her views of gla¬
ciers, 266; Muir sends article
to, 269; letter to, on the Se¬
quoias, 270-73; mediates for
publication of Muir’s “Yo¬
semite Valley in Flood,” 317;
sends writings of Muir to
Emerson for publication, 317;
estimates Muir’s literary
power accurately, 317, 318;
comes to the Yosemite, 322 ; ii,
28; urges Muir to publish his
own discoveries, i, 323; Muir
to have ramble with, 324;
her plan for study of Coast
Range, 338, 339; mediates
between Muir and Agas¬
siz, 342; introduces William
Keith and Irwin to Muir, 343 ;
Muir consults with, on liter¬
ary matters, 368; death of
son, 399; “Sierra Studies”
largely due to, ii, 5, 6 ; Deputy
State Superintendent of Pub¬
lic Instruction, 37; death of
second son, 66; her home, Car-
melita, the literary center of
Southern California, 66, 67,
197 ; interested in marriage of
Muir, 100, 123; letters to, of
the year 1865, i, 139; of the
year 1869, 205; of the year
1870, 213, 218-39, 270; of the
year 1871, 242, 249, 266,
291-302; of the year 1872,
269, 318, 328-31, 334-37, 339,
344-52, 354; of the year
1873, 381-84, 386-94; of the
year 1874, ii, 10-33, 37; of

the year 1875, 50-55; of the
year 1877, 67-72.

Cedar Keys, Florida, i, 170-
72.

“ Century,” articles by Muir in,
ii, 234, 304, 394, 395.

Chadbourne, Paul O., Chancel-
ler of University of Wiscon¬
sin, i, 138.

Chicago World’s Fair, ii, 261-
63.

Chico, Rancho, of General
John Bidwell, ii, 72.

Child-beating, i, 57.

Chilwell, Mr., accompanies
Muir on Yosemite trip, i,
177; learns to shoot, 182-85;
adventure with bear, 186;
practises shooting, 187, 188;
acts as driver of jack-
rabbits, 188; tries owl flesh,

188, 189; eats himself sick,

189.

China, visited by Muir, ii, 350,
351.

Choate, Joseph, meeting with
Muir, ii, 312.

Civilization, and Nature, com¬
pared, i, 325, 342.

Clark, Galen, Yosemite pioneer,
i, 185, 186, 256; accompanies
Muir on Kings River Excur¬
sion, 386-390; seen after
years, ii, 236.

Clemens, S. L., contributor to
the “Overland Monthly,” ii,

4.

Cleveland, President, appoints
commission to report on
condition of national forest
areas, ii, 60; thirteen forest
reservations proclaimed by,
304, 399; fails to sign amend¬
ment nullifying forest reser¬
vation, 401.

Clocks, invented by Muir, i,
59-62, 74, 75, 81, 86.

428

INDEX

Cloud, Jack (“McLeod”), i,
172.

Cloud's Rest, excursion to, i,
368-71.

Coast and Geodetic Survey, ii,
49.

Coast Range, the, Mrs. Carr's
plan for study of, i, 338, 339.

Colby, William E., i, 359; as¬
sists Muir in securing cession
of Yosemite Valley to Fed¬
eral Government, ii, 351, 352,
357; summer outings to High
Sierra organized and con¬
ducted by, 351 ; letter to, 376.

Colleges, called “old grannies,”
i, 333.

Collier, Robert J., letter of Os¬
born to, on the Hetch-Hetchy
Yosemite Park, ii, 360.

Colonization scheme, i, 233-35.

Colorado Grand Canon, ii, 345.

Comb, William, ii, 274.

Concord, Muir at, i, 261; ii,
266.

Congar, Dr. E. M., fellow
student of Muir, ii, 67 ; visited
by Muir, 68, 69.

“Coniferous Forests of the
Sierra Nevada,” ii, 394.

Connel, John (“Smoky Jack”),
sheep-man, i, 190, 191.

Converse, Charles, ii, 58.

Converse Basin, ii, 348.

Copley Medal, ii, 283.

Corliss, Doctor, missionary, ii,
152.

Corwin, the. United States
Revenue steamer, ii, 161;
goes in search of DeLong and
the Jeannette, 161-63; ac¬
count of the expedition,
163-91; makes landing on
Wrangell Land, 187.

Coulterville, i, 182.

Cowper, William, i, 301.

Crane’s Flat, i, 243, 244; ii, 25.

Crawfordjohn, Lanarkshire,
early home of Daniel Muir,

i, 5-7.

Creation, a common conception
of, i, 166, 167.

Crittenden, Colonel, ii, 156.

“Cruise of the Corwin, The,”

ii, 162, 163.

Cuba, Muir botanizes in, i, 173.

Daggett, Kate N., letter to, i,
372.

Dana, Charles A., of the New
York “Sun,” ii, 270.

Dana, Mount, i, 233.

Darwin, Charles, his “Origin of
Species,” i, 145; read by
Muir, 240, 297 ; a great man,
335.

Davel Brae school, the, i, 27,
32.

Davidson, Professor, on the
issue of the recession of the
Yosemite Valley to the Fed¬
eral Government, ii, 303.

Dawes Glacier, ii, 158; first
called Young Glacier.

Deady, Judge, ii, 148.

Death, Muir’s conception of, i,
164, 165; ii, 333-35.

Death song of Indians, ii, 21,

22.

Degrees conferred on Muir, ii,
295, 296, 298, 304 n., 365.

Delaney, Pat, i, 195, 202, 235;
ii, 19.

DeLong, Commander, relief
expedition in search of, ii,
161; first news that he had
failed to touch Herald Island
or Wrangell Land, 163.

Dewing (J.) Company, ii, 218.

Diablo, Mount, ascent of, ii, 90,
94.

“ Dial, The,” tribute to F. F.
Browne in, ii, 358.

Dick, Robert, geologist, ii, 283,

429

INDEX

Dick, Thomas, his “The Chris¬
tian Philosopher,” i, 72.

Dick, Mr., teacher, ii, 280.

Dickey, Mrs. Anna R., letters
to, ii, 346, 375.

Doran, Captain P. A., of the
Elder, ii, 318, 319; visits
Muir, 331.

Douglas, David, and Muir, ii,
272, 273, 277.

Douglas squirrel, companion of
Sequoia, i, 271.

Draper, Dorothea, ii, 329.

Dumfries, visited by Muir, ii,
280.

Dunbar, Scotland, i, 8, 13;
Davel Brae school at, 26, 27,
31, 32; grammar school of,
27, 28; the country about,
30-35; romantic associations
of, 34; visited by Muir,
273-80; field of the battle of,
278.

Duncan, William, ii, 212.

Dwinell, Doctor I. E., clergy¬
man, ii, 135.

Eagle Rock, fall of, i, 327.

“Early-rising machine,” i, 59-
62, 74.

Earthquakes, experienced by
Muir, i, 325-29.

Eastwood, Miss, ii, 308.

Edinburgh, visited by Muir, ii,
272-75.

“Edward Henry Harriman,”
ii, 318.

Edwards, Henry, introduced
by Mrs. Carr, i, 262; Muir
collects butterflies for, 263,
264, 292, 383; names butter¬
fly for Muir, 264 n.; allusion
to, ii, 13.

Edwards Collection, the, i,
264 n.

Egleston, Mr., i, 190.

Egypt, visited by Muir, ii, 350.

El Capitan, i, 311.

Elder, the. Captain Doran of,
ii, 318, 319; on board,

329-32.

Eleanor, Lake, ii, 360, 361, 417,
422.

Eliot, C. W., ii, 271; salutation
of, in conferring honorary
degree from Harvard on
Muir, 296 n.

Emerson, Edward Waldo, Muir
dines with^ ii, 268.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, meet¬
ing with Muir, i, 252-57;
influence of, on Muir, 253;
visits the Carrs, 258; corre¬
sponds with Muir, 258-60;
sends books to Muir, 258-60;
Muir at grave of, 261 ; ii, 267 ;
material of Muir sent to, for
publication, 317; prophesies
that Muir will visit the At¬
lantic coast, 319; Muir dines
with his son, ii, 266; Muir
visits his home, 268; tries
to get Muir for teaching,
292.

Emerson, Mount, i, 389.

Engelmann, Doctor, i, 343.

Ennis, Samuel, buys Fountain
Lake farm, i, 50 n.

Ennis Lake. See Fountain
Lake.

Erigeron Muirii, ii, 191.

Erosion, caused by ice and by
water, compared, i, 355, 356.
See Glacial erosion. Glaciers.

Erwin, Louisiana, marries John
Strentzel, ii, 99.

Esquimo village, population of,
dead of starvation, ii, 184.

“Evening Bulletin,” of San
Francisco, letters of Muir in,
ii, 32, 36, 51, 62, 71, 98, 123,
125, 163, 174, 190.

“Explorations in the Great
Tuolumne Canon,” i, 396.

INDEX

Fairweather Range, the, ii, 305,
326.

Fay, Jerome, on Mount Shasta
with, ii, 30, 49, 51.

Feather River, ii, 78.

“Features of the Proposed
Yosemite National Park,” in
the “Century,” ii, 234.

Field mice, the embroidery left
by, ii, 16, 17.

Fields, Mrs. James T., ii, 271.

Fir, red, ii, 307, 308.

Fisher, Walter L., Secretary of
the Interior, ii, 422.

Fisherman’s Peak (Mount
Whitney), i, 393.

Flattery Rocks, ii, 138.

Flood, Marysville, ii, 43.

“ Flood-Storm in the Sierra, A,”
ii, 45.

Florence, Mount, i, 280 n.

Florida, Muir tramps in, i, 169;
Muir visits, ii, 313-16.

“Forest Reservations and Na¬
tional Parks,” ii, 305, 403.

Forest reserves, first established
by President Harrison under
Act of March 3, 1891, ii, 257,
395; the President authorized
to make, 257 n., 395; pro¬
claimed by President Cleve¬
land, 304, 399; restored to
public domain by the Senate,
400; practical value of, 400,
402; amendment nullifying,
not signed by President
Cleveland, 401; restored un¬
der President McKinley to
public domain, 401, 402;
Muir writes articles for, 403-
05, 407, 408; Muir’s efforts
for, successful, 406.

Forestry Commission. See
N ational Forestry Com¬
mission.

Foster, Sir Michael, ii, 340.

Foulness, the idea of, i, 252.

Fountain Lake, i, 38, 39;
Muir’s farewell visit to, 156,
158; hopes entertained by
Muir with regard to, 158-60;
ii, 393; description of, i, 160-
62.

Fountain Lake farm, bought by
Daniel Muir, i, 9 ; work on, 44-
50; sold to Daniel M. Gallo¬
way, 50, 115; subsequent
sales of, 50 n., 135.

“Fountains and Streams of the
Yosemite National Park,” ii,
339.

Foxtail Pine, ii, 116.

“Free labor,” i, 79, 80.

Gabb, William M., assistant of
Whitney, i, 275.

Galloway, Mrs., death, ii, 61;
her character, 62.

Galloway, David M., i, 23;
marries Sarah Muir, 50; buys
Fountain Lake farm, 50, 115;
ridicules idea of preserving
meadow and bog and Foun¬
tain Lake, 159, 160; death,
195.

Galloway, Sarah Muir, letters
to, i, 152, 211, 246, 337, 384;
ii, 48, 55, 60-66, 83. See
Muir, Sarah.

Galloway, Mr. and Mrs., letters
to, i, 85, 92, 96, 109.

Gannett, Henry, i, 359; ii, 331.

Garfield, James R., Secretary of
the Interior, grants permit
for conversion of Hetch-
Hetchy Valley into reservoir,
ii, 416, 420, 421.

General Grant National Park,
ii, 402.

“Geologist’s Winter Walk, A,”
i, 369, 382.

“Geology of California,” Whit¬
ney, i, 275.

Gibbons, W. P., ii, 70.

INDEX

Gilbert, Charles, introduced to
Muir, ii, 127, 332.

Gilder, Richard Watson, meets
Muir, ii, 264; Muir at his
country-place, 312; urges
Muir to write his auto¬
biography, 317.

Gilder, Mrs. R. W., ii, 312.

“Gilderoy,” ballad, i, 11.

Gilderoy, David. See Gilrye.

Gilderoy (Gildroy, Gilroy),
James, maternal great-grand¬
father of John Muir, i, 12.

Gilderoy, John, son of James, i,

12.

Gilderoys, the, old Scottish
stock, 11.

Gilroy, Susan, cousin of Muir,

11, 280.

Gilroy. See Gilderoy.

Gilrye, Ann, daughter of David
and Margaret Hay Gilrye,
i, 14; marriage to Daniel
Muir, 15. See Muir, Ann
Gilrye.

Gilrye, David, son of James
Gilderoy, i, 12; the “grand¬
father Gilrye ” of Muir’s boy¬
hood, 12; settles at Dunbar,

12, 13; marries Margaret
Hay, 13; children of, 14;
Muir’s earliest teacher and
guide, 26; death, 37; pro¬
phecy of, 40; farewell gift of,
78.

Gilrye, David, brother of Ann
Gilrye, i, 15.

Gilrye, Margaret, daughter of
David and Margaret Hay
Gilrye, aunt of Muir, 14;
married to James Rae, 15.

Gilrye, Margaret Hay, mater¬
nal grandmother of Muir, 13;
children of, 14; death, 37.

Gist, Governor W. H., i, 77.

Glacial erosion, as origin of
Yosemite, Muir’s early ad¬

vocacy of, i, 278-95; Muir
urged by Professor Runkle to
write out his theory of, 295;
Muir considers writing out
his theory of, 296, 297 ; Muir
continues his study of, 298-
308; publication of Muir’s
first article on, 308, 316;
W. P. Blake mistakenly
credited with being the orig¬
inator of theory of, 308 n.;
Muir states his intention to
write a book on, 314, 315;
a rock due to, ii, 11, 12. See
Glaciers.

Glacier, Dawes, ii, 158; Har-
riman, ii, 325; Lyell, i, 230,
350; Merced, i, 285, 286;
Muir, ii, 124, 160, 246-51,
326; Red Mountain, i, 350;
Ribbon, i, 304-06; Young, ii,
158.

Glacier Bay, ii, 123, 124, 160,
246, 247.

Glacier Point, i, 283, 284, 329,
330, 368.

Glaciers, existence of living, in
the Sierra Nevada, i, 230;
two views of, 266 ; what they
accomplished, 266-68; Whit¬
ney’s disbelief in origin of
Yosemite as due to, 276, 277;
residual, in the High Sierras,
286; Muir discovers traces of,
in the Yosemite Valley, 289-
91; summary of Muir’s
studies in, up to 1871, 302-
08; living, in Sierra Nevada,
first published announce¬
ment made of, 323; living, in
Sierra Nevada, Muir’s first
full account of discovery of,
344-52; traces of, in Nevada,
ii, 104, 105, 107, 114; in
Alaska, 123, 124, 126; up
Holkham Bay (Sumdum),
158, 159; at head of Taylor

INDEX

Bay, 160; traces of, at Un-
alaska Harbor, 166, 167;

action of, in Arctic lands,
165-67, 173, 181, 183; on
Mount Rainier, 232; action
of, in and about New York,
266; action of, at Rio de
Janeiro, 372. See Glacial
erosion.

Glenora Peak, S. Hall Young’s
rescue from death on, ii, 124.

God, Daniel Muir’s idea of,
i, 18-22; John Muir’s idea of,
166, 332, 333; a common
conception of, 166.

“God’s First Temples,” ii, 58,
69.

“Goid-Hunters,” ii, 233.

Goodrich, Mrs., i, 104.

Grand Canon of the Colorado,
created a National Monu¬
ment by President Roose¬
velt, ii, 414, 415.

Grasshoppers, the embroidery
left by, ii, 14-16.

Gray, Asa, Muir warm friend
of, i, 146, 335; influence of,
on Muir, 253; meeting with
Muir, 337, 366; asks that
Muir send him plants, 342;
Muir describes excursion to
Cloud’s Rest to, 368-71; the
“ angular factiness of his pur¬
suits,” 369; plants sent to,
379-81; guest at Rancho
Chico, ii, 72; on Mount
Shasta expedition, 80-84;
and Muir’s collection of
Arctic plants, 191; death,
242; memories of, 243; tries
to get Muir for Harvard,
292; his writings read by
Muir, 317.

Gray, Mrs. Asa, ii, 311; Muir
visits, 312.

Gray Herbarium at Harvard
University, plants from Her¬

ald Island and Wrangell
Land in, ii, 191.

Gray don, Katharine Merrill,
correspondence with Muir,
ii, 126-30, 133-35; death of
great-aunt, 337.

Graydon, Mary Merrill, letter
to, ii, 258-60.

Greenbaum, Mr., agent of the
Alaska Commercial Com¬
pany, ii, 168.

Greenwood, Grace. See Lippin-
cott.

Griswold, M. S., gives Muir
first lesson in botany, i, 95.

Hague, Professor, of the Na¬
tional Forestry Commission,
ii, 299, 398.

Half Dome, i, 275.

Hamilton, Mount, ii, 71.

Hang-nest, the, i, 247, 248.

‘‘Harper’s Weekly,” article of
Muir published in, ii, 305,
403.

Harriman, Carol and Roland,
ii, 329.

Harriman, E. H., Muir’s boy¬
hood memoirs taken down by
direction of, ii, 120, 318;
friendship with, 318.

Harriman, the Misses Mary
and Cornelia, ii, 329.

Harriman Alaska Expedition,
joined by Muir, ii, 318,
320-33.

Harriman Glacier, ii, 325.

Harrison, Benjamin, President,
ii, 414; established first forest
reserves under Act of March
3, 1891, 257, 395.

Harte, Francis Bret, withdraws
from editorial direction of
the ‘‘Overland Monthly,” i,
317; ii, 4; contributor to the
‘‘Overland Monthly,” 4.

Harvard University, gives de*

433

INDEX

gree to Muir, i, 253; Gray
Herbarium at, ii, 191; Gray
suggests that Muir come to,
292; awards honorary degree
to Muir, 295, 296, 298.

Havana, i, 173.

Hawaii, visited by Muir, ii,
351.

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, on the
spirituality of locomotive
railroad travel, i, 235, 368;
his grave, ii, 267; Muir visits
his homes at Concord, 268.

Hay, James and Hardy, ii, 284,
285.

Hay, Margaret, maternal
grandmother of John Muir,
i, 13. See Gilrye, Margaret
Hay.

Hayden, Doctor F. V., in charge
of United States Geological
and Geographical Survey of
the Territories, ii, 80.

Hazel Green, ii, 25.

Hepburn, G. Buchanan, on ex¬
cursion with Muir, ii, 41 ; his
death, 41 n.

Herald Island, ii, 163; plants
from, 191.

Herbarium, from Canada, i,
117; from Arctic lands, ii,
191.

Hetch-Hetchy Valley, i, 300;
Muir makes first expedition
to, 310-13; a lake bottom
filled with sand and moraine
matter, 354; revisited, ii,
289, 290; and the question of
San Francisco’s water supply,
360, 361, 384, 389; permis¬
sion granted that it be
converted into a reservoir,
416-23.

‘Hetch-Hetchy Valley,” i,
396.

Hickory Hill farm, bought by
Daniel Muir, i, 9; sale of, 22;

purchase of, 51; digging of
well on, 52; Muir’s farewell
visit to, 156, 158.

Higgs, Sarah, paternal grand¬
mother of Muir, i, 4-6.

High, James L., fellow student
of Muir, i, 114.

High Sierra, the, residual gla¬
ciers in, i, 286.

Hodgson, Mr., his family
nurse Muir, i, 170; spot
where his house stood, 170,
171 ; his family in after years,
ii, 315; death of, 315.

Hodgson, Mrs., nurses Muir, i,
170; found in after years, ii,
315.

Hoffman, Charles F., assistant
of Whitney, i, 275.

Hoffman, Mount, i, 198, 290,
292, 351, 352.

Holkham Bay, glaciers in, ii,
158; Tracy Arm of, 159.

“Hollow,” the, near Meaford,
description of the people of, i,
129; Muir’s sojourn at, 129-
51; burning of factory at,
149; reference to, ii, 298.

Holman, Doctor, ii, 168.

Honolulu, i, 223.

Hooker, Sir Joseph Dalton,
English botanist, Muir warm
friend of, i, 146; guest at
Rancho Chico, ii, 72;^on
Mount Shasta expedition,
80-84; discovers Linncea bo¬
realis, 81, 82; visited by
Muir at Sunningdale, 282,
283; praises “Mountains of
California,” 289; home of, in
Los Angeles, some of Muir’s
writing done at, 354; Muir
goes to the Grand Cafion
with, 359.

Hooker, Mrs. J. D., ii, 282,
354; letters to, 363-66, 369.

Hooker, Katharine and Marian,

434

INDEX

“Wayfarers in Italy,” ii,
370, 371.

Hooper, Captain C. L., of the
Corwin, ii, 161-63.

Hopkins, Mark, visits the
Yosemite, i, 225.

Hornaday, William T., his
“The Minds and Manners of
Wild Animals,” i, 43.

Houghton, MiflBlin & Company,
chosen by Muir as his pub¬
lishers, ii, 306; publish “My
First Summer in the Sierra,”
359, 361; to bring out Muir’s
autobiography, 366.

Howland, Judge, ii, 271.

Howling Valley, ii, 248.

Humboldt, Alexander von, i,
240.

“Humming-Bird of the Cali¬
fornia Waterfalls, The,” ii,
121.

Humphreys, Mount, i, 388.

Hunter Joe, on canoe trip with
Muir, ii, 157.

Hutchings, Florence, i, 216;
heroine of Yosemite novel,
225, 228, 279, 280; first white
child born in the Yosemite,
280 n.

Hutchings, Gertrude, in Th6-
rese Yelverton’s novel, i, 279.

Hutchings, J. M., visits Yosem¬
ite in winter, i, 205 ; gives em¬
ployment to Muir, 207; his
Yosemite claim, 225; busi¬
ness relations of Muir with,
237, 291, 295; unfavorable to
Muir’s fame as interpreter
of the Yosemite, 241; Muir
leaves employ of, 241; in
Therese Yelverton’s novel,
279-81.

Hutchings, Mrs. J. M., i, 222;
in Therese Yelverton’s novel,
279, 280; to go East, 297.

Huxley, Thomas H., i, 335.

Ice, in the Yosemite, i, 266,
267.

“In the Heart of the California
Alps,” ii, 394.

India, visited by Muir, ii, 350.

Indian disturbances, ii, 97, 98.

Indianapolis, Muir arrives at, i,
152; circumstances that in¬
duced Muir to go to, 153;
circumstances that induced
Muir to leave, 154-56; re¬
visited by Muir, ii, 298.

Indians, death song of, ii, 21,
22; looked on Muir as mys¬
terious being, 124.

Institute of Technology, Run-
kle tries to get Muir for, ii,
291, 292.

Iowa, character of the State, ii,
299.

Ireland, visited by Muir, ii,
283.

Irwin, Mr., artist, i, 343.

Island Belle, the, i, 172, 173.

J. Dewing Company, ii, 218.

Jackson, Helen Hunt, wrote
much of “Ramona” at
Carmelita, ii, 67, 197 ; applies
to Muir for itinerary for
invalid self, 196-98; Muir’s
answer to her letter, 198-202;
death, 202, 203.

Jaffry, Miss, ii, 279.

Japan, visited by Muir, ii, 350,
351.

Jay, Charles, of the “Hollow,”
i, 129, 130, 138.

Jeannette, the relief expedition
in search of, ii, 161; sank
June 12, 1881, 162.

Jewett, Sarah Orne, ii, 271.

Johnson, Robert Underwood,
meeting with Muir, ii, 233;
goes through the Yosemite
with Muir, 234-36; letters
to, 237-40, 244, 287-95, 348,

435

INDEX

355-57 ; suggests initiation
of project for establishment
of Yosemite National Park,
234, 394; assists Muir in
an effort to secure enlarge¬
ment of the Sequoia Na¬
tional Park, 253; urges
Muir to get a supporting
organization on the Pacific
Coast, 255; Muir with, in
New York, 264; with Muir at
Emerson’s home, 269; much
devoted to Muir, 271; stim¬
ulated Muir’s literary pro¬
ductiveness, 306; assists
Muir in securing cession of
Yosemite Valley to Federal
Government, 351; urges
Muir to write a description
of the Grand Canon of the
Colorado, 414.

Johnson, Mrs. R. U., ii, 264.

Jordan, Professor David Starr,
introduced to Muir, ii, 127;
gives name of Ouzel Basin to
glacier channel, 130; intro¬
duces Muir as “author of the
Muir Glacier,’’ 259.

Kalmia, i, 377, 378.

Kaweah grove, efforts to secure
inclusion of, in Sequoia
National Park, ii, 253.

Keeler, Charlie, ii, 326.

Keith, William, artist, i, 322;
ii, 219, 245; beginning of
Muir’s friendship with, i,
343; with Muir in the Yo¬
semite, ii, 51, 53.

Kellogg, Albert, botanist of the
California Academy of Sci¬
ences, i, 322; on Kings River
trip, 386; injustice done to,
ii, 70; death, 242; memories,
243.

Kennedy, Sallie, letter to, ii, 73.

Kern River Canon, ii, 345.

Keyes, Judge, ii, 268, 269.

King, Clarence, assistant of
Whitney, i, 275; his opinion
of the origin of the Yosemite,
276, 277, 357, 358; not the
originator of the glacial ero¬
sion theory as regards the
Yosemite, 277 n., 356; carries
butterflies to Edwards, 292;
refuses to accept theory of
living glaciers, 353; his sup¬
posed ascent of Mount Whit¬
ney, 394; ascends Mount
Whitney, 396; discovered
glaciers on Shasta, ii, 30.

Kings River, excursions to, i,
385-94; ii, 82, 85, 88; region,
efforts to secure inclusion of,
in Sequoia National Park,
253.

Kings River Canon, ii, 252,
253.

Klawak, ii, 153, 154.

Kneeland, Professor Samuel,
prepares paper on erosion
theory, i, 309; reads extracts
from Muir’s letters, 316, 345.

Knox, Mr., i, 324.

Koshoto, Chief of the Hoonas,
ii, 152.

Lacey, John F., Chairman of
the Public Lands Committee
of the House, ii, 406.

Lakes, along the Yosemite
streams, i, 355.

Lammermoor, Bride of, the
castle of, ii, 278.

Lamon, James C., visits Yo¬
semite in winter, i, 204;
his Yosemite claim, 225; in
Th^rese Yelverton’s novel,
279; his grave, ii, 53.

Lamon, John, the earliest in¬
habitant of the Yosemite, i,
365; his sheep corral, 365,
366.

436

INDEX

Lanier, Sidney, ii, 285.

Lankester, Sir Ray, on profit¬
ableness of pursuit of science,
i, 362.

Lathrop, John Hiram, Chancel¬
lor of University of Wiscon¬
sin, resignation, i, 138.

Law, Professor James, ii, 61.

Lawrence, Mary Viola, “Sum¬
mer with a Countess” by, i,
238 n.

Lawrence Island, ii, 183, 184.

Lawson, Professor, i, 360.

LeConte, Professor Joseph, i,
228; meeting of Muir and,
229; takes ten days’ ramble
with Muir, 230-33, 284, 285;
Muir sends ice to, 266; in
Th^rese Yelverton’s novel,
279; his reference in journal
to Muir’s glacial observa¬
tions, 285; makes first pub¬
lished announcement of
Muir’s discovery of living
glaciers in Sierra Nevada,
323; Muir to have scientific
ramble with, 324; a calm
thinker, 321; withholds judg¬
ment on living glaciers, 348
n.; living-glacier theory ac¬
cepted by, 353; his “Gla¬
ciers,” 382; and the Sierra
Club, ii, 256; his report of
conversation with Agassiz,
293; on the issue of the reces-,
sion of Yosemite Valley to
the Federal Government,
303.

Lester, John Erastus, his words
regarding Muir, i, 360.

Lily gardens, i, 198.

Lime Key, sketched by Muir,
i, 171.

Lincoln, Abraham, nomination
and election of, i, 77, 79; his
speech on “free labor,” 79,
80.

Lincoln-Douglas Debates, i,
77.

Linnoea borealis, in California,
ii, 81, 82.

Lippincott, Sarah Jane, her
description of Muir, i, 262.

“Living Glaciers in Califor¬
nia,” i, 352; ii, 57.

Lizards, the embroidery left by,
ii, 13, 14.

“Lize in Jackets,” ii, 72, 76.

Loafer’s chair, invention of
Muir, i, 88, 89.

Logging, i, 125-27.

Lone Mountain, ascended, ii,
108.

Longworth, Maria Theresa. See
Yelverton, Th6r^se.

Lot Tyeen, on canoe trip with
Muir, ii, 157.

Louisville, Kentucky, Muir
starts on thousand-mile walk
from, i, 162.

Lukens, T. P., in Hetch-Hetchy
Valley with Muir, ii, 290.

Lunam, Mrs., ii, 274.

Lunam, Maggie, ii, 279, 280.

Lyell, Sir Charles, interested
Muir, i, 146, 240.

Lyell Glacier, the, i, 230, 350,

Lyon, Mr., master of grammar
school, i, 27, 28.

Magee, Thomas, with Muir in
Alaska, ii, 137, 140, 148, 151,
152.

Magnifica, ii, 308.

Malay Archipelago, visited by
Muir, ii, 350, 351.

Malheur Reservation, ii, 97.

Man, his egotism, i, 43, 44; as
principal object of creation,
165-67; ii, 9; origin of, i, 168.

Manaos, visited by Muir, ii,
370.

Manchester, Massachusetts,
visited by Muir, ii, 271.

437

INDEX

Manchuria, visited by Muir, ii,
350.

Manila, visited by Muir, ii, 351.

Manufacture, articles of, to be
pure works of God, i, 374.

Maple sugar, the making of, i,
128.

Maps, outline glacier, i, 320.

Mariposa Sequoia Grove, the, i,
187.

Mariposa trail, the, i, 186.

Marysville Buttes, ii, 76.

Marysville flood, the, ii, 43.

Mather, Jane, ii, 280.

Matthews, Nathan, Mayor of
Boston, ii, 270.

McChesney, Alice, i, 372; ii,
33-36.

McChesney, J. B., i, 227; con¬
sulted by Muir, 265; letters
to, 366, 371, 375; Muir’s
friendship for, 371, 372; Muir
takes room in house of, 399;
with Muir in the Yosemite,
ii, 51.

McChesney, Mrs. J. B., i, 399.

McCloud River, the, ii, 39, 40.

McClure, Mount, glacier, i,
348-50.

McGwinn, Howard, owner of
Muir house tract of Fountain
Lake farm, i, 50 n.

Mcllhaney, Asa K., letter to,
ii, 380.

McKinley, William, President,
ii, 401.

Meaford, Canada, the “Hol¬
low” near, i, 129-51.

Mechanical contrivances of
Muir, i, 59-62, 74, 78-81, 86,
88, 89, 131, 148, 149, 153,
210.

Melville, playmate of Muir, ii,
273.

Merced basin, i, 203.

Merced Glacier, the, i, 285, 286.

Merced Lake, ii, 28.

Merced River, the, i, 285, 286;
in the valley of, ii, 18; a sail
down, 90, 93.

Merriam, Doctor C. Hart, ii,
331, 340, 342, 343; letters to,
338, 343, 387.

Merriam, Clinton L., letter to,
i, 302-08.

Merrill, Catharine, Muir de¬
scribes Fountain Lake to, i,
160-62; sympathetic letter of
Muir to, 231-33; Muir de¬
scribes glacier to, 288-91.

Merrill, Mina, letter to, ii, 382.

Mice, field, the embroidery left
by, ii, 16, 17.

Michigan, University, i, 96.

Miller, Hugh, ii, 272, 273.

Miller, Joaquin, contributor to
the “Overland Monthly,” ii,

4.

Moderation, an attribute of
Nature, i, 319.

Mono Lake, i, 233, 284.

Monuments and Antiquities
Act, ii, 414, 415.

Moore, J. P., i, 335, 336.

Moore, Mrs. J. P., i, 335, 336.

Moores, Charles W., son of
Julia Merrill Moores, i, 117.

Moores, Janet Douglass, corre¬
spondence with, ii, 213-18.

Moores, Julia Merrill, early
Indianapolis friend of Muir, i,
117; ii, 213; her daughter,
213; death of sister, 333-35.

Moores, Merrill, accompanies
Muir on walk, i, 160; visits
Muir in the Yosemite, 338;
sister of, ii, 213; elected
member of Congress, 213.

Moraines, Muir’s study of, in
Sierra Nevada, i, 344-52;
outlines of, marked by fir
forests, i, 353, 355. See
Glaciers.

Morrill Act, the, i, 91, 92.

438

INDEX

Morris, Major, Treasury agent,
ii, 143, 148.

Morrison, Mr., ii, 148.

Moses, Professor and Mrs., ii,
324. '

Mount Bremer, ii, 41.

Mount Broderick, i, 275.

Mount Dana, i, 233.

Mount Diablo, ii, 90, 94.

Mount Emerson, i, 389.

Mount Florence, i, 280 n.

Mount Hamilton, ii, 71.

Mount Hoffman, i, 198, 290,
292, 351, 352.

Mount Humphreys, i, 388.

Mount Lyell, i, 230, 350.

Mount McClure, i, 348-50.

Mount Rainier, ii, 219, 229, 232.

Mount Shasta, ii, 29-41, 49, 51,
72-84.

Mount Whitney, i, 392-96.

Mountain Models, i, 320.

“Mountain Sculpture,” ii, 4.

“ Mountains of California,”
published, ii, 288; its recep¬
tion, 288, 289; at work on en¬
larged edition of, 353; public
mind awakened by, 397.

Muir, Ann Gilrye, mother of
John Muir, wife of Daniel
Muir, i, 15; characterization
of, 16; had kinship of soul
with her son, John, 16-18;
had concern for her son’s
spiritual welfare, 17; death,
25; emigrates to America, 38;
writes to son, 83; letter to,
314; son has premonition of
her death, ii, 296.

Muir, Anna, sister of John, i,
16; letter to, 136.

Muir, Daniel, father of John
Muir, birth, i, 4, 5; early life,
5-8; Dunbar days, 8; emi¬
grates to America, 8, 9, 36, 37 ;
his religious activity, 9, 10;
characterized by his son, 10;

his first wife, 15; marries Ann
Gilrye, 15; attitude toward
scientific study of son, 18, 19;
his ideas of God and nature,
19-22; decides to sell farm,
22 ; goes on evangelistic trips,
23-25; death, 25; ii, 206, 208;
settles at Fountain Lake,i, 38 ;
severity of his discipline and
farm regime, 44, 47-50, 59;
religiousness in household of,
59-63; takes up vegetarian¬
ism, 71; in Biblical argument
with his son, 7 1-74; hostile to
harmony between nature and
revelation, 72-74; sends his
son ten dollars, 83; Muir’s
premonition of his death, ii,
204-06 ; last meeting with his
son, 206-08; account of his
death, 208-10.

Muir, Daniel, brother of John, i,
16; at the “Hollow,” 129,
130, 132; at home again, 136.

Muir, David Gilrye, brother of
John, i, 16; urged by his
brother to restrain father, 23-
25; letters to, 23, 208, 216;
goes with father to America,
36, 37; at work on farm, 59;
drives John to station, 78;
illness of wife, 208, 209; ii,
195.

Muir, Helen, daughter of Muir,
letters to, ii, 275, 283, 297,
301, 313, 322; illness of, 352,
353, 357; bungalow of, 373;
her home, 382, 388.

Muir, Joanna, sister of John, i,
16; letter to, 136.

Muir, John, grandfather of
John Muir, i, 4-6.

Muir, John, a curious sketch of
his ancestry, i, 3; his ances¬
try, 4-16; his sketch of his
father’s life, 5-11 ; heather in,
6, 272; birth, 16, 26; had kin-

INDEX

ship of soul with his mother,
16-18; his idea of God, 18-
22, 166, 322, 323; his father
out of sympathy with his
scientific studies, 18-22;
urges check on father’s re¬
ligious fanaticism, 23-25 ; his
boyhood in Scotland, 26; his
schooling, 26-30; his ac¬
quaintance with the Bible,
26, 27 ; sources of his literary
power, 27; his knowledge of
French, 29; gives daughter
advice on lessons, 30; ii, 278;
early impressed by varying
aspects of Nature, i, 30-35;
his recollections of the ocean,
31-33; goes with father to
America, 36, 37; his delight
in his new home, 39, 40; his
animal recollections, 40-42;
his interest in animals, 42-44;
his view of man’s egotism,
43, 44; his duties on the farm,
44-47 ; a victim of his father’s
severity, 47-50; well-digging
experience of, 52, 53 ; impres¬
sion made upon, by death of
old man, 53, 54; correspond¬
ence with blacksmith
preacher’s son, 54-58; his
views of child-beating, 57 ;
his pity for broken-hearted
child, 57 ; makes “early-rising
machine,’’ 59-62; religious¬
ness of, 63; his early love of
reading, 63, 64; beginning of
his appreciation of good liter¬
ature, 64, 70; juvenile poem
of, “The Log Schoolhouse,’’
65-68; his self-education, 69;
his reading, 70-74; in Bibli¬
cal argument with his father,
71—74; mechanical contriv¬
ances of, 74-76; leaves home,
76-78; meets with kindness,
78; called “An Ingenious

Whittier,” 79; makes ac¬
quaintance of Mrs. Carr,
80; demonstrates with his
clock, 81; student at Univer¬
sity of Wisconsin, 82, 84, 85,
88-95; letters home, 82;
letters from home, 82, 83; as
district school-teacher, 85—
88; school-house contriv¬
ances of, 86; his plant-stem
register, 88; his room at the
University, 88-90; his “loaf¬
er’s chair,” 88, 89; Vroman’s
description of, 89—91; prac¬
tices crayon sketching, 92,
93; becomes religious ad¬
viser to enlisted men, 95 ; his
first lesson in botany, 95; his
enthusiasm for study of
botany, 95-97 ; intends to en¬
ter the medical profession, 95,
114, 116; botanical trip of,
down Wisconsin River valley,
97-106; poem of, “In Search
of a Breakfast,” 106-09;
makes botanical excur¬
sion along Wisconsin River,
109-12; takes farewell of
University of Wisconsin, 113;
continues botanical studies,
115; sets out for Canada, 116;
herbarium of, 117, 132; in
Amaranth, Luther, and Ar¬
thur, 118, 119; autobiograph¬
ical sketch of his Canadian
wanderings, 119-29; finds
Calypso borealis, 120, 121; in
wolf forest, 122 ; at the Camp¬
bell farm, 123-25; at the
“Hollow,” near Meaford,
Canada, 129-51; writes sam¬
ple letter for his sister Mary,
133, 134; value of Mrs.

Carr’s friendship to, 138-44,
205, 227, 334, 336, 340, 387;
ii, 26; invited to return to
University of Wisconsin as

INDEX

free student, i, 139; breaks
away from narrow Biblicism
of his training, 145-48; vari¬
ous mechanical inventions of,
148, 149; arrives at Indian¬
apolis, 152; uncertain of pro¬
fession, 152, 153; his restless¬
ness, 152, 157, 158; circum¬
stances that induced him to
go to Indianapolis, 153;
makes labor-saving improve¬
ments, 153; injury to eye,
154; decides to devote his
life to Nature, 155; his fare¬
well visit to Fountain Lake
and Hickory Hill, 156, 158;
his thousand-mile walk, 156,
162, 168, 169; his “good
demon,” 157; his hopes with
regard to Fountain Lake,
158-60; ii, 393; his descrip¬
tion of Fountain Lake, i, 160-
62; graveyard experience of,
164; his conception of death,
164, 165; ii, 333-35; breaks
from anthropocentric nature
philosophy, i, 165-68; ii, 9;
enraptured with the palmet¬
to, i, 169; ill in Florida, 169-
71; sails for Cuba on the Is¬
land Belle, 173; wishes to
float down the Amazon, 173;
sails for New York, 174; his
feeling about New York, 174,
175; sails on the Santiago de
Cuba for Isthmus of Pan¬
ama, 175; his shipboard ex¬
periences, 175; his trip across
the Isthmus of Panama, 176.

Arrives at San Francisco,
177 ; sets out for the Y osemite,
177, 178; his walk to Pacheco
Pass, 178-80; his unpublished
memoirs quoted, on Yosem-
ite trip, 180-200; shoot¬
ing experience of, 184, 185;
adventure with bear, 186;

persuades Chilwell to try
owl flesh, 188, 189; acts as
shepherd, 190-96; acts as
overseer of shepherd, 195-
99; has summer of greatest
enjoyment, 200; observes
devastating effect of sheeping
in High Sierra, 201; refuses
invitation to visit Carrs in
California, 202; visits Yo-
semite in winter, 202-08;
still contemplates visiting
South America, 203; living
in the Yosemite, 207-39; on
family love, 211; his views of
baptism, 217; on visitors to
the Yosemite, 221 ; his letters
called poems, 225; in Yosem¬
ite novel, 225, 228, 278-84;
visits Pohono, 228, 229; his
meeting with Professor Le-
Conte, 229; his knowledge of
existence of living glaciers in
the Sierra Nevada, 230;
takes ten days’ ramble with
Professor LeConte, 230-33,
284, 285; mention of his
theory of glacial origin of Yo¬
semite in book of LeConte,
231; avoids the American
colonization scheme, 234,
235, 239; business relations
with Hutchings, 237, 291,
295; reading and study of,
240; leaves employ of Hutch¬
ings, 241; still in the Yosem¬
ite, 242-52 ; meeting with Em¬
erson, 253-57; given degree
by Harvard University, 253;
influenced by Agassiz, Gray,
and Emerson, 253; corre¬
sponds with Emerson, 258-
60; writes to Mrs. Carr re¬
garding Emerson, 261; at
grave of Emerson, 261, ii,
267; described by Sarah Jane
Lippincott, i, 282; meets

INDEX

Henry Edwards, 262 ; collects
butterflies for Edwards, 263,
264, 292; urged to come out
of his solitude, 265, 293; his
view of glaciers, a form of
terrestrial love, 266; letter on
the things accomplished by
glaciers, 266-68; sends article
to Mrs. Carr, 269; letter on
the Sequoias, 270-73; as to
the time when he began to
advocate the glacial erosion
theory of the origin of the
Yosemite, 278-86; his rejec¬
tion of Whitney’s theory of
the origin of the Yosemite,
287 ; on the frightful tenden¬
cies of a “Christian” school,
288, 289; discovers dead
glacier in the Yosemite Val¬
ley, 289-91; continues his
glacial investigations, 294 ;
urged by Runkle to write out
his glacial theory, 295; con¬
siders his financial situation,
296; considers writing out
his theory, 296, 297; contin¬
ues his study of glacial ero¬
sion, 298-308; his “Yosem¬
ite Glaciers” published in
New York “Tribune,” 308,
316; disapproves of Pro¬
fessor Kneeland’s paper,
309; makes first expedition
to Hetch-Hetchy, 310-13;
states intention of writing a
book containing his erosion
theory, 314, 315; writes vari¬
ous articles on the Yosemite,
316, 317; his literary power
accurately estimated by Mrs.
Carr, 317, 318; on Ruskin’s
attributes of Nature, 319;
his unconditional surrender
to Nature, 320; gets in touch
with Emily Pelton again,
321; undying loyalty and

442

devotion a trait of, 322; his
friendship for Keith, 322;
LeConte makes first pub¬
lished announcement of his
discovery of living glaciers in
Sierra Nevada, 323; urged to
publish his own discoveries,
323; engagements of, 324;
compares Nature and civili¬
zation, 325; his opinion of
men, 325, 371, 373, 374; en¬
joys earthquakes, 325-29;
knows not what to write,
336 ; meeting with Asa Gray,
337; visited by Merrill
Moores, 338; Mrs. Carr’s
plan for his study of the Coast
Range, 338, 339; his glow at
turning to the mountains,
341; nurses disappointment
over Gray, 342; wins ap¬
proval from Agassiz, 342;
and John Torrey, 343; begin¬
ning of his friendship with
William Keith, 343; his first
full account of discovery of
living glaciers in Sierra Ne¬
vada, 344-52; his “Living
Glaciers of California,” 352;
was the first who demon¬
strated the part that ice
played in the making of
Yosemite, 356, 357, 361; his
“Studies in the Sierra,” 358;
E. C. Andrews’s tribute to,
359 ; did not take up question
of the pre-glacial Yosemite,
360, 361 ; evaluation of study
of the Yosemite, 361, 362 ; en¬
joyed deeper satisfactions of
the soul, 362, 363; legends
about, 364; his cabins, 364-
66; climbs Glacier Point in
the snow, 367, 368; meeting
with Sill, 368; excursion to
Cloud’s Rest, 368-71; letter
of acknowledgment for pre-

INDEX

sent of lamp, 372-74; critique
of dualism and artificiality
of Ruskin’s nature philoso¬
phy, 374-78; a letter on
plants sent to Gray, 379-81;
on the shortcomings of words,
382 ; list of writings to be sent
to Mrs. Carr, 383, 384 ; hopes
to put his mountain studies
in permanent form, 385;
makes excursion to Kings
River, 385-94; his ascent of
Mount Whitney, 395; never
left his name in the wilder¬
ness, 396; enters Tuolumne
Canon, 397; projected writ¬
ings of, 396, 398; developed
muscle sense, 397, 398;.

takes room in home of J. B.
McChesney, 399.

“The strangle Oakland
epoch” in his life, ii, 3; con¬
tributions to the “Overland
Monthly,” 4, 5; his “Sierra
Studies ” in large measure due
to Mrs. Carr, 5, 6; his distaste
for the mechanics of writing,
6, 7 ; his dislike for the solitari¬
ness of writing, 7, 8 ; chafed at
being among men, 8; as a con¬
versationalist, 7-9; further
articles, 9, 10; goes for his
health to the Yosemite, 10;
his joy at returning to the
mountains, 10-13; traces
embroidery left in sand, 13-
17 ; catches eternal harmo¬
nies of Nature, 17; in the
Valley of the Merced, 18; in
the Valley of the Tuolumne,
19-21; on a night- tramp in
the mountains, 21-26; pre¬
pares to leave the Yosemite
forever, 26-29; his purpose
in life “to entice people to
look at Nature’s loveliness,”
29; ascends Mount Shasta,

29-36; letters in “Evening
Bulletin,” 32, 36, 51, 62, 71,
98, 123, 125, 163, 174, 190;
his fondness for children, 33;
around Shasta, 37-41 ; studies
sheep on Mount Brewer, 41 ;
climbs Douglas spruce in
order to enjoy storm, 41,
42; enjoyed storms, 42-46;
sometimes apologizes for the
life he leads, 13-15; in a
storm on Mount Shasta, 49—
51, 84; has deepening interest
in trees, 51, 52, 54, 56; glad to
be free from problems of life,
54; tries to arouse sentiment
against forest devastation,
58, 59; lectures, 60, 61, 71;
on blessings of domestic life,
62; enjoys writing his first
book, 63; his preference for
quills, 64, 65; visits Utah,
65-67; goes to Los Angeles,
67, 68; visits Congar, 69;
Shasta with Hooker and
Gray, 72, 80-84; descends
Sacramento River in skiff,
73-80; discovers Linncea
borealis, 81, 82; on Thanks¬
giving dinners, 83, 85, 86; ac¬
count of summer’s wander¬
ings, 87-90, 94, 95; his gains
from wanderings, 91; joins
survey bound for Nevada, 97,
101 ; guest in Strentzel house¬
hold, 100; his account of
Nevada trip, 101-16; has
lodgings with Isaac Upham,
117; difference between his
spoken and written words,
119, 120; brilliancy of his con¬
versation, 120; his boyhood
memoirs taken down by di¬
rection of E. H. Harriman,
120, 318; Miss Strentzel an
attraction to, 121, 122; be¬
comes engaged to Miss Strent-

INDEX

zel, 123; goes to Alaska, 123;
with S. Hall Young, 123, 124;
looked upon as mysterious
being by the Indians, 124;
scares Indians by fire on
mountain, 124; his gains in
Alaska, 126; correspondence
with Katharine Merrill
Graydon, 126-30, 133-35;
marriage announced, 131;
as an arguer, 132; wedding,
135; home of, 136; leaves on
second Alaska trip, 137; his
second trip to Alaska, 138-
61; daughter born to, 161;
joins Arctic relief expedition,
161; his account of the ex¬
pedition to Wrangell Land,
163-91; on Wrangell Land,
163; his collection of plants
gathered in Arctic lands,
191 ; happy in the enjoyments
of home, 192; his earnings
from magazine articles, 193;
his summary of the years,
1881-1891, 193, 194; takes
wife to Yosemite Valley,
194; second daughter born
to, 195; Helen Hunt Jackson
applies to, for itinerary, 196-
98 ; his answer to Helen Hunt
Jackson’s letter, 198-202;
his letter to Helen Hunt
Jackson answered, 202, 203;
his premonition of Daniel
Muir’s death, 204-06; last
meeting with his father, 206-
08; his account of Daniel
Muir’s death, 208-10; re¬
visits old scenes and people,
210-13; correspondence with
Janet Moores, 213-18; un¬
dertakes to edit and contri¬
bute to “Picturesque Cali¬
fornia,’’ 218; feels the strain
of care and worry, 218-20;
experience with a reporter,

221-24; passages for “Pic¬
turesque California,’’ 226—
30 ; meeting with Robert Un¬
derwood Johnson, 233; takes
Johnson through the Yosem¬
ite, 234-36; writes articles
for the “Century,’’ 234; in¬
itiates project of establish¬
ment of Yosemite National
Park, 234; on the Yosemite
Park project, 237-42, 244;
memories of Torrey, Gray,
Kellogg, and Parry, 242,
243 ; his third trip to Alaska,
245.

Advocates enlargement of
Sequoia National Park, 253,
254; president of Sierra
Club, 256 ; meeting with J. W.
Riley, 259; goes East on
way to Scotland, 261; visits
Chicago World’s Fair, 261-
63; in New York, 265, 266;
in Boston, 266, 269; visits
Concord, 266-69 ; visits Cam¬
bridge, 270; visits Manches¬
ter, 271; at Edinburgh, 272-
73; at Dunbar, 273-80; at
various places in Scotland,
280, 281, 283; visits Sir
Joseph Hooker, 282, 283;
visits Ireland, 283; his
“Mountains of California,’’
288, 289; revisits Hetch-
Hetchy, 289, 290; attempts
to secure him as teacher,
291-93; visits Yosemite
Valley, 294, 295; awarded
honorary degree by Harvard,
295, 296, 298; has premoni¬
tion of his mother’s death,
296; accompanies unofficially
the Forestry Commission,
297-302, 399 ; his Eastern ex¬
periences, 298, 299; defends
recommendations of Forest
Commission, 304; joins Sar-

INDEX

gent and Canby on expedi¬
tion to Rocky Mountains and
Alaska to study forest trees,
304, 305; degree conferred
upon, by University of Wis¬
consin, 304 n.; on his diffi¬
culty of writing, 306; discov¬
ers flowers of red fir, 307,
308; makes trip into the Al-
leghanies, 311, 312; with the
Osborns, 312-14; goes with
Sargent to Florida, 313-16;
urged to write his autobi¬
ography, 317; joins Harri-
man Alaska Expedition,
318, 320, 321; his account of
the Expedition, 322-33; re¬
ceives letters of apprecia¬
tion, 336-38; receives invi¬
tation to visit the Osborns,
340; literary plans, 341-
43; on killing of wild an¬
imals, 349, 350; visits foreign
lands, 350, 351; his work in
securing union of Yosemite
Valley with Yosemite Na¬
tional Park, 351, 352, 355-
57; death of wife, 352, 353;
discovers petrified forest,
353 ; doubts being able to ac¬
complish literary plans, 353-
55; visits South America,
354, 369-73; visits South
Africa, 354, 374; rewrites au¬
tobiographical notes, 359,
362; at work on Yosemite
notes, 364; degrees conferred
on by Yale, 365; has finished
a volume of his autobiogra¬
phy, 366; his preference
among trees, 380, 381 ; death,
390, 391.

And California, what they
did for each other, 392;
the idea of national re¬
serves conceived by, 392,
393 ; his services in the cause

of forest reservations, 395,
396; effect of his “Moun¬
tains of California” in awak¬
ening the public mind, 397;
understands outcry against
forest reservations, 401 ;
urged to write syndicate let¬
ters on forest reserves, 402;
writes articles for forest re¬
servation, 403-05, 407, 408;
his efforts for forest reserva¬
tion successful, 406; in the
High Sierra with President
Roosevelt, 408-13; friend¬
ship with President Roose¬
velt, 411, 415, 416; results of
his trip with President Roose¬
velt, 414; urged to write a de¬
scription of the Grand Canon
of the Colorado, 414; writes
description, 415; suggests to
President that he proclaim
the Grand Canon a national
monument, 415; letter to
President Roosevelt on the
Hetch-Hetchy Valley ques¬
tion, 417-20; effect of his
letter, 421.

Muir, Mrs. John (see Louie
Wanda Strentzel) daughter
born to, ii, 161 ; second daugh¬
ter born to, 195; concerned for
her husband’s health, 220; a
stimulating and appreciative
helper of her husband, 221;
death, 352, 353; letters to,
138-57, 163-91, 208-13, 221-
31, 235, 246, 261-83, 322-33.

Muir, Margaret, sister of John,
i, 16.

Muir, Mary, aunt of John,
i. 4, 5, 7. ^

Muir, Mary, sister of John, i,
16; letter to, 136.

Muir, Sarah, sister of John, i,
16; goes with father to Amer¬
ica, 37 ; marries David M.

INDEX

Galloway, 50. See Galloway,
Sarah Muir.

Muir, Sarah Higgs, paternal
grandmother of John Muir, i,
4-6.

Muir, Wanda, daughter of John
Muir, advised as to lessons
by her father, i, 30; ii, 278;
letters to, 278, 299-302, 322;
married, 357 ; her home, 382,
383, 388.

Muir Glacier, ii, 124, 160, 246,
247; sled-trip across upper
reaches of, 248-51 ; revisited,
326.

Muir Inlet, ii, 246, 247.

Muir’s Lake. See Fountain
Lake.

“My First Summer in the Si¬
erra,” ii, 359, 362, 396.

“Mysterious Things,” ii, 203,
296.

Names, at Trout’s Hollow, i,
137.

National Forest Commission,
C. S. Sargent Chairman of,
ii, 297 ; appointed, 398; mem¬
bers of, 398; Muir travels
with, unofficially, 297-302;
its recommendations defend¬
ed by Muir, 304.

National Monuments, created
by President Roosevelt, ii,
414.

National parks, the idea of,
conceived by Muir, i, 158-
60; ii, 392, 393; the number
of, doubled under President
Roosevelt, 414.

“National Parks and Forest
Reservations,” address on,
i, 158-60.

Nature, the attributes of, ac¬
cording to Ruskin, i, 319; and
civilization, compared, 325,
342; insinuates herself into

humanity, 373; according to
Ruskin, 376-78; huckster ap¬
praisement of, ii, 8, 9; eter¬
nal harmonies of, 17; Muir’s
purpose to entice people to
look at her loveliness, 29;
storms one manifestation of,
42 ; the Scriptures of, 42 ; close
contact with, needed, 46.

Nebraska, the, steamship, i,
175, 177.

Nebraska, character of the
State, ii, 300.

Nelson, E. W., collector for
Smithsonian Institution, ii,
184.

Nevada, Muir joins survey
party bound for, ii, 97,
101; Muir’s account of trip
through, 101-16.

New England, the people of, ii,
95.

New York, Muir’s feeling
about, i, 174, 175; Muir
visits, on way to Scotland,
ii, 265, 266; another visit of
Muir to, 298.

New Zealand, visited by Muir,
ii, 350.

Noble, John W., Secretary of
the Interior, ii, 253, 254, 395;
a faithful and far-sighted
servant of the American
people, 253, 395; established
first forest reserves under
Act of March 3, 1891, 257.

Norton, Mr., accompanied
Muir to Mount Hamilton, ii,
71.

Oakland, California, epoch of,
in Muir’s life, ii, 3.

Oban, visited by Muir, ii, 280.

Ocean, Muir’s recollections of,
i, 31-33.

O’Flanagan, James Roderick,
his novel, “ Gentle Blood, or

446

INDEX

The Secret Marriage,” i,
278 n.

‘‘Old Log Schoolhouse,” juve¬
nile poem of Muir, i, 65-68.

Olmsted, Frederick Law, ii,
263.

Olney, Warren, Sr., and the
Sierra Club, ii, 256; letter to,
303.

Osborn, Professor Henry Fair-
field, visited by Muir, ii, 266,
298, 312-14; letters to, 349,
360, 374, 384-86; some of
Muir’s writing done at home
of, 354, 367; Muir goes to
Yosemite with, 359.

Osborn, Mrs. H. F., ii, 299;
letters to, 340, 368, 374,
383.

‘‘Our National Parks,” ii, 306.

‘‘Our New Arctic Territory,”
ii, 187.

Ouzel Basin, ii, 130.

Over-industry, vice of, i, 48-50.

‘‘Overland Monthly,” the, edi¬
torial direction of, i, 317; ii,
3, 4; a costly magazine, i,
317; ii, 4; Muir publishes
‘‘Yosemite Valley in Flood”
and ‘‘Twenty Hill Hollow”
in, i, 317; ‘‘Living Glaciers
of California” published in,
352; ‘‘Studies in the Sierra”
published in, 358, 396; ii, 4;
Muir writes occasionally for,
i, 385; ‘‘Hetch-Hetchy Val¬
ley” and ‘‘Explorations in
the Great Tuolumne Cafion
published in, 396; contrib¬
utors to, ii, 4; abandoned,
5; ‘‘Wild Wool” in, 41; ‘‘A
Flood-Storm in the Sierra”
in, 44, 45.

Pacheco Pass, the, i, 179, 180.

Page, Walter Hines, friendship
with Muir, ii, 306; stimu¬

lated Muir’s literary pro¬
ductiveness, 306; Muir at
his home, 312; urges Muir to
write his autobiography, 317;
letters to, 320, 335, 341;
opens pages of ‘‘Atlantic
Monthly” for ‘‘The Amer¬
ican Forests,” 403; urges
Muir to write a description
of the Grand Canon of the
Colorado, 414.

Page, Mrs., W. H., ii, 306.

Palmer, Howard, letter to, ii,
378.

Palmetto, the, Muir enrap¬
tured with, i, 169.

Panama, Isthmus of, trip
across, i, 176.

Para, Brazil, visited by Muir,
ii, 368-71.

Pardee, Governor George C.j
ii, 355.

Paregoy, Mr., i, 330.

Parkinson, John D., tutor,

89.

Parkman, Francis, ii, 270.

Parks. See National parks.

Parry, Charles C., i, 343;
death, ii, 242; memories of,
243.

Parsons, Captain, of the Island
Belle, i, 172-74.

Parsons, Mr. and Mrs. Ed¬
ward J., letter to, ii, 376.

Parsons, Marion Randall, ii,
389.

Parsons, Mr., superintendent
of Central Park, ii, 270.

Pelton, Emily, letters of Muir
to, descriptive of botanical
tour, i, 97-106; Muir again
gets in touch with, 321;
comes to the Yosemite Val¬
ley, 322; ii, 28; letter to, i,
323 ; Muir calls on, ii, 29, 40,
44.

Pelton family, i, 82.

447

INDEX

Perkins, Senator, of California,
ii, 400.

Peters’ Colonization Com¬
pany, ii, 99.

Petrified forest, remnants of,
discovered by Muir, ii, 353.

Petrified Forest National Mon¬
ument, ii, 353.

Phelan, James D., his igno¬
rance about the Hetch-
Hetchy Valley, ii, 419.

Phelps, Professor, ii, 365.

“Picturesque California,” ii,
218-30, 394.

Pinchot, Gifford, ii, 265; of the
National Forestry Commis¬
sion, 398; suggests that San
Francisco take its water sup¬
ply from the Yosemite Na¬
tional Park, 420, 421.

Pine, sugar, ii, 52; white, 115;
foxtail, 116; yellow, 116, 300.

Piper, A. D., promoter of Amer¬
ican colonization scheme, i,
233.

Pixley, Frank, ii, 236.

Plant-stem register, invention
of Muir, i, 88.

Pohono, i, 228, 229.

Ponderosa, ii, 300, 308.

Prairie du Chien, i, 82, 83.

Proteus-Muggins, ii, 309.

Puget Sound, masts sent from,
ii, 227.

Purns, Agnes, ii, 279.

Rabe, Carl, i, 396.

Rae, James, husband of Mar¬
garet Gilrye, i, 15.

Rail-splitting, i, 46.

Rainier, Mount, ascended by
Muir, ii, 219, 229, 232.

Ramsay, Dean, “Reminis¬
cences of Scottish Life and
Character,” ii, 272.

Range of Light, the, i, 201.

Rapelye, Mrs., i, 228.

Ravens, ii, 251.

Red fir, flowers of, discovered by
Muir, ii, 307, 308.

Red Mountain glacier, i, 350.

Redding, Cyrus, his play, “A
Wife and not a Wife,” 278 w.

Redwood, the, ii, 51, 68.

Reid (Harry Fielding) and
Cushing party, in Alaska, ii,
247.

Reid, Harvey, fellow student of
Muir, i, 85.

Religiousness, in household of
Daniel Muir, i, 59-63; if
warped, may cause harm, 62.

Repose, an attribute of Nature,
i, 319.

Ribbon glacier, i, 304-06.

Riley, Henry, ii, 259.

Riley, James Whitcomb, meet¬
ing with Muir, ii, 259.

Rio de Janeiro, its harbor a
glacial bay, ii, 372.

“Rival of the Yosemite, A,” ii,
254.

River, a dead, ii, 43.

Rocky Mountains, studying
forest trees in, ii, 304, 305.

Rodgers, August F., Assistant
of United States Coast and
Geodetic Survey, ii, 97.

Roosevelt, Theodore, services
rendered by, to cause of
forests and parks, ii, 254;
inspires, signs, and transmits
resolution of Boone and
Crockett Club, 258; counsels
Muir, 353 ; sets aside petrified
forest, 353; supported trans¬
ference of Yosemite Valley to
Federal Government, 355; in
the High Sierra with Muir,
408-13; friendship with
Muir, 411, 415, 416; results
of his trip with Muir, 414;
letter of Muir to, on Hetch-
Hetchy question, 417-20;

448

INDEX

his answer to Muir’s letter,
421, 422.

Roosevelt-Sequoia National
Park bill, ii, 254.

Rowell, Doctor Chester, Sena¬
tor of the California Legisla¬
ture, ii, 408.

Royce, Josiah, ii, 270.

Runkle, Professor John Daniel,

i, 261; urges Muir to write
out his glacial theory, 295 ; to
send book to Muir, 297 ; tries
to get Muir for Institute of
Technology, ii, 291, 292.

Ruskin, John, on the idea of
foulness, i, 252; on the at¬
tributes of Nature, as “Re¬
pose,” “Moderation,” 319;
critique of the dualism and ar¬
tificiality of his nature philos¬
ophy, 374-78; lacked “faith
in the Scriptures of Nature,”
42.

Russell, Israel C., gives Muir
credit for discovery of living
glaciers, i, 353.

Russia, visited by Muir, ii,
350.

Sacramento River, descent of,

ii, 73-80.

“Salmon Breeding on the
McCloud River,” ii, 32.

San Francisco, i, 177; and the
Hetch-Hetchy Valley, ii, 360,
361, 384, 389, 390, 419-23.

“San Gabriel Mountains,
The,” ii, 66.

“San Gabriel Valley, The,”
ii, 66.

San Joachin plain, the, i, 180-
82.

San Joaquin River, a sail down,
ii, 90, 93.

Sanderson, Charles, i, 228.

Sanford, Mr., graduate of Yale,
ii, 370.

Santa Clara valley, the, i, 178j
179.

Santiago de Cuba, the, i, 175.

Sargent, Professor C. S., Di¬
rector of the Arnold Arbore¬
tum, Muir visits, ii, 269, 270;
praises, “Mountains of Cal¬
ifornia,” 288; Chairman of
Forestry Commission, 297,
299, 398; invites Muir to ac¬
company the Commission un¬
officially, 297, 399; makes
expedition to study forest
trees in Rocky Mountains
and Alaska, 304, 305; needs
flowers of red fir, 307; his
Silva, 307-10; makes trip
with Muir and Canby into
the Alleghanies, 311, 312;
letters to, 316-20, 344; Muir
goes to Europe with, 350;
urges Muir to syndicate let¬
ters on forest reserves, 402;
works for forest reservation,
406; urges Muir to write a
description of the Grand
Canon of the Colorado, 414.

Sargent, Mrs. C. S., ii, 270.

Sargent, Robeson, ii, 350.

Savannah, Georgia, Muir
camps among the tombs at,
i, 164; revisited by Muir, ii,
314, 315.

Sawmill, self-setting, i, 60; in
Yosemite Valley, 207; not
operated by Muir after 1871,
241; and hang-nest, descrip¬
tion of, 247, 248.

Schooling, methods of, in Scot¬
land, i, 26-30; in Wisconsin,
65.

Scotch, the, pedagogical meth¬
ods of, i, 26-30.

Scotland, Muir revisits, ii, 272-
83.

Scott, Walter, i, 73; ii, 272,
273.

449

INDEX

Screech, Joseph, hunter, dis¬
covers Hetch-Hetchy, i, 310.

‘ ‘ Scribner’s, ” “ W ater Ouzel ’ ’
appears in, ii, 127 ; articles of
Muir in, 394.

Sellers, A. H., ii, 298.

Senger, Professor J. H., and
the Sierra Club, ii, 256.

Sequoia National Park, move¬
ment for enlargement of, ii,
253.

Sequoias, letter of Muir on, i,
269-73; Muir’s interest in,
ii, 54, 56; devastation among,
57-59; study of, by Muir, 71,
88, 89, 91; one of the largest,
348; in General Grant Na¬
tional Park, 402.

Shadow Lake (Merced Lake),
ii, 28.

Shaler, Nathaniel S., his period
of readjustment, i, 146.

Shapleigh, Frank, of Boston, i,
227.

Shasta, Mount, ascent of, ii, 29-
36; excursions on, 37-41; in
storm on, 49-51, 84; botani¬
cal trip to, 72-84.

Sheep, wild, studied by Muir,
ii, 41.

Sheep herding, i, 190-94; ii,
394.

Sheep-men, deadliest enemies
of the forests, ii, 58, 294.

Sheeping, in the High Sierra,
devastating effect of, i, 201;
ii, 394; regulation of, 294,
295, 343, 344, 395.

Sheep Mountain, i, 393 n.

Sheep Rock, ii, 41.

Shinn, Charles Howard, ii, 241.

Shishaldin volcano, ii, 328.

Siberia, visited by Muir, ii,
350.

Sibley, W. E., i, 123 n.

Siddons, Mungo, head of Davel
Brae school, i, 27.

Sierra, Muir’s studies in the, i,
358, 359; ii, 4, 5.

Sierra Club, republishes Muir’s
“Studies in the Sierra,’’ i,
359; organization of, ii, 256;
purposes of, 256, 396; suc¬
cessful opposition of, to the
Calminetti Bill, 257; Muir
insists that it express itself in
issue of cession of Yosemite
Valley to the Federal Gov¬
ernment, 302, 303 ; outings to
High Sierra under auspices
of, 351; on value of wild
parks, 379; address of Muir
before, on national parks,
393; effective work of, 396,
406.

Sierra Nevada, the, i, 180, 181,
203, 312; first published an¬
nouncement of living glaciers
in, 323; Muir’s first full ac¬
count of discovery of living
glaciers in, 344-52; best of all
mountain-ranges, 377.

Sill, Edward Rowland, meeting
with Muir, i, 368; contributor
to the “Overland Monthly,”
ii, 4.

Simms, William, on Kings
River trip, i, 386.

Sisson, Mr., ii, 31.

Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, Con¬
cord, ii, 266, 267.

Smart Billy, on canoe trip with
Muir, ii, 157.

Smith, Hoke, Secretary of the
Interior, did not object to the
Calminetti Bill, ii, 257.

Smith’s Valley, i, 310. See
Hetch-Hetchy.

Smoky Jack. See Connel, John.

Snakes, funny story about, ii,
222-24.

Snow Dome, ii, 250.

Snowflakes, i, 268.

Snow flowers, i, 244, 245.

450

INDEX

Soda Springs, ii, 239.

Sonne, Mr., ii, 308.

South America, Muir plans to
visit, i, 173, 203; colonization
scheme, 233 ; visited by Muir,
ii, 354, 368-73.

South Dakota, character of the
State, ii, 300.

Spanish- American War, ii, 405.

Stebbins, Dr., i, 382, 383.

“Steep Trails,” ii, 49, 66.

Stein, Philip, impressions of
Muir, i, 89.

Sterling, Professor John W., of
University of Wisconsin, i,
91, 138, 139.

Stewart, George W., his
“ Mount Whitney Club Jour¬
nal,” i, 394.

Stickeen, the dog, on canoe
trip, ii, 157, 160; his antece¬
dents, 160 n.; Muir repeats
story of, 265, 270, 271; story
of, appears in the “Cen¬
tury,” 304.

“Stickeen,” ii, 42, 304.

Stirling, visited by Muir, ii, 280.

Stoddard, Charles Warren, i,
231, 367.

Storms, Muir’s enjoyment of,
ii, 42-46.

Strentzel, Dr. John, career, ii,
99; death, 252.

Strentzel, Mrs. John, ii, 252.

Strentzel, Louie Wanda, daugh¬
ter of John Strentzel, ii, 100;
an attraction to Muir, 121,
122; becomes engaged to
Muir, 123; engagement an¬
nounced, 131; wedding, 135.
See Muir, Mrs. John.

Strentzel, Dr., Mrs. John, and
Miss, letters to, ii, 94,
101-19.

“Studies in the Formation of
Mountains in the Sierra
Nevada,” ii, 9, 10.

“Studies in the Sierra,” i, 358,
359, 396; ii, 4, 5, 9, 63.

Styles, Mr., of “Forest and
Stream,” ii, 270.

Sugar pine, the, ii, 52.

Sunset, a mountain, i, 369, 370.

Swain, Mrs. Richard, letter to,
ii, 336.

Swett, Helen, ii, 96; ill, 116, 118.

Swett, John, with Muir in the
Yosemite, ii, 51, 54; Muir at
home of, 67, 68; sickness in
family of, 116; on Muir’s
writing, 120.

Swett, Mrs. John, letter from,
ii, 131-33.

Taft, William H., President, ii,
422.

Tahoe reservation, ii, 319.

Taylor, J. G., impressions of
Muir, i, 89.

Taylor Bay, ii, 159, 160.

Tenaya Canon, climb through,
i, 368, 369.

Tenaya Lake, i, 232, 299, 300.

Tesla, Nicola, ii, 299, 314.

Thanksgiving dinners, ii, 83, 85,

86.

Thayer, James Bradley, meet¬
ing with Muir, i, 254; his “A
Western journey with Mr.
Emerson,” 254 n.

Theda Muiri, i, 264 n.

Thermometer invented by
Muir, i, 75, 76.

Thomson, William, his “Or¬
pheus Caledonius, ” i, 12.

Thoreau, Henry David, his
“Maine Woods,” i, 223;
Muir at his grave, ii, 267;
Muir visits his residence, 268;
verses of, quoted, 363.

“Thousand-Mile Walk to the
Gulf, A,” i, 157, 164.

Thurso, ii, 283.

Torrey, John, i, 230; and Muir,

451

INDEX

343; death, 242; memories,

243.

Toyatte, death of, ii, 148, 152,
153.

“Travels in Alaska,” ii, 123,
390, 391.

“ Treasures of Yosemite, The, ”
in the “Century,” ii, 234.
Trees, become of interest to
Muir, ii, 51, 52; in Rocky
Mountains and Alaska, ex¬
pedition to study, 304, 305;
Muir’s preference among,
380, 381. See Sequoias.
Trout, Harriet, of the “Hol¬
low,” i, 129, 150.

Trout, Mary, of the “Hollow,”

i, 129, 150.

Trout, William H., of the
“Hollow,”!, 129; his account
of Muir’s sojourn at the
Hollow, 130-33 ; last letter of
Muir to, 150, 151; visited by
Muir, ii, 298.

Truman, Ben, ii, 236.

Tule grove, efforts to secure
inclusion of, in Sequoia
National Park, ii, 253.
Tuolumne Canon, i, 311, 397;

ii, 244, 418.

Tuolumne Meadows, i, 232; ii,

244, 418.

Tuolumne River, the, in the
valley of, ii, 19-21.
Tuolumne Yosemite, the, i, 310;
ii, 358, 389. See Hetch-
Hetchy.

Twain, Mark. See Clemens.
“Twenty Hill Hollow,” i, 317.
Tyndall, John, in the Yosemite,
i, 230; read by Muir, 240;
Muir receives book of, 297 ; a
great man, 335, 367.

University degrees conferred on
Muir, ii, 295, 296, 298, 304 n.,
365.

Upham, Isaac, Muir has lodg¬
ings with, ii, 117.

Utah, visited by Muir, ii, 65-
67.

Vancouver Island, ii, 139-48.

Vanderbilt, Mr., ii, 150, 151.

Vandever, General William,
member of Congress, ii, 234.

Varnel, Mr., i, 76.

Victoria, ii, 142-47.

Vigilance, whaler, ii, 178.

Vroman, Charles E., his ac¬
count of Muir, i, 89-91.

Walden Pond, ii, 268.

“Water Ouzel,” ii, 127.

Waterston, Mrs. Robert C.,
visits the Yosemite, i, 225,
228; on Muir’s letters, 225.

Watson, Frank E., of the Amer¬
ican Museum of Natural
History, i, 264 n.

Well-digging, i, 52, 53.

Wesley, John, ii, 387.

Wheeler, Benjamin Ide, ii, 409.

Whipping, a Scotch fashion, i,
47.

White, Senator, of California,
ii, 400.

White Pine, ii, 115.

White Pine mining region, ii,

112.

Whitehead, James, buys Foun¬
tain Lake farm, i, 50 n.,
135.

Whitney, Mount, i, 392-96.

Whitney, Josiah D., on the
Yosemite, i, 215; State Ge¬
ologist of California, 274;
made Professor of Geology at
Harvard University, 275;
publishes books on the Yo¬
semite, 275; his theory of the
origin of the Yosemite, 275-
77, 287; his “Yosemite

Guide-Book,” 275, 277, 282;

452

INDEX

in Th6rese Yelverton’s novel,
279, 282; scorns Muir’s

theory of origin of the Yo-
semite, 287, 288; repudiates
former statement, 302; be¬
ginning of the end of his
theory, 309; his impressions
of the Sierra Nevada, 312;
refuses to accept theory of
living glaciers, 353, 355, 356;
and King’s views of the
Yosemite, 357 ; statement on
entrance of Tuolumne Canon
disproved, 397.

Wild animals, preservation of,
ii, 349-51.

“Wild Sheep in California,” ii,

10.

“Wild Sheep of the Sierra,” ii,
394.

“Wild Wool,” ii, 41.

Williams, Sam, editor of San
Francisco “Evening Bul¬
letin,” ii, 125.

Willy mott, William, his “Selec¬
tions from the Colloquies of
Corderius,” i, 28.

Wilson, Alexander, ornitholo¬
gist, i, 36.

Wilson, Emily Pelton. See
Pelton, Emily.

Wilson, President Woodrow, ii,
384, 385, 389.

“Wind Storm in the Forest of
the Yuba, A,” ii, 42.

Wirad, Mr., machine-shop of, i,
82.

Wisconsin, the Muirs settle in,
i, 38; schooling in, 65.

Wisconsin, University of, Muir
student at, i, 82, 84, 85, 88-
95; crisis at, 91, 93; reorgan¬
ized, 92; Muir takes farewell
of, 113; invites Muir to re¬
turn as free student, 139;
confers degree upon Muir, ii,
304 n.

Wisconsin Agricultural Society,

i, 79-81.

Wisconsin River valley, botani¬
cal tour down, i, 97-106;
description of excursion in,
109-12.

Wisconsin State Agricultural
Fair, i, 76, 79.

Wolves, adventure with, in
Canadian woods, i, 122; ad¬
venture with, on Muir Gla¬
cier, ii, 248-50.

Works, Senator John D., ii,
390,

Wrangell Land, one of the ob¬
jectives of relief expedition,

ii, 162; difficulty of ap¬
proaching, 186; the Corwin
makes landing on, 187;
plants from, 191.

Writing, the mechanics and
solitariness of, irksome to
Muir, ii, 6-8.

Yale, confers honorary degree
on Muir, ii, 365.

Yellow pine, ii, 116, 300.

Yelverton, Therese, her novel,
“Zanita, a Tale of the Yo¬
semite,” i, 225, 228, 278-85;
in the Yosemite, 228, 233,
236; her perils in the snow,
238; her disputed marriage
rights, 273 n., 278 n.; envies
Muir’s calmness of heart,
362, 363.

Yelverton, William Charles,
Viscount Avonmore, i, 278 n.

“Yosemite, The,” i, 386.

Yosemite Bay, ii, 159.

Yosemite Creek, i, 304—07.

Yosemite Falls, upper, i, 249-
51.

Yosemite fountains, ii, 244.

“Yosemite Glaciers,” i, 308,
316.

Yosemite National Park, es-

453

moEX

tablishment of, ii, 234, 394,
395; consideration of the
management of, 237, 238; as
to the extent of, 238^0, 244,
245; demands for recession
of the Valley to, 255; attempt
to alter the boundaries of,
257; Yosemite Valley made
an integral part of, 351, 352,
355-57 ; need of certain road
in, 379; invaded, 416-23.

“Yosemite in Spring,” i, 316.

Yosemite Valley, the, Muir’s
first trip in, i, 177-88; visited
by Muir in winter, 202-08;
letters from Muir while liv¬
ing in, 207-394; granted to
the State of California, 224,
225 ; Th^rese Yelverton’s
novel about, 225, 228, 278-85;
the question of its origin early
considered, 274 ; Whitney’s
theory of the origin of, 275-77,
287 ; Muir’s early advocacy of
theory of origin of, 278-95;
Muir discovers trace of gla¬
cier in, 289-91; Muir contin¬
ues glacial studies in, 298-
308; a lake basin filled with

sand and moraine matter,
354; lakes along streams of,
355; question of the pre¬
glacial form of, 360, 361 ; mis¬
management of, by State
Commissioners, ii, 255, 302;
in frowsy condition, 294,
295; bill for the recession of,
to the Federal Government,
302; made an integral part of
the Yosemite National Park,
351, 352, 355-57; question of
allowing automobiles to en¬
ter, 378.

Yosemite Valley, a new, ii, 91.

“Yosemite Valley in Flood,”
i, 317.

“Yosemite in Winter,” i, 316.

Young, Reverend S. Hall, mis¬
sionary, ii, 123; accom¬
panies Muir on expeditions,
123; his “Alaska Days with
John Muir,” 124, 137; his
rescue from death on Glenora
Peak, 124; with Muir at Fort
Wrangell, 149, 151, 153, 155,
156; on canoe trip, 157.

Young Glacier, ii, 158.

Yuba River, ii, 41, 45.

I